The mysterious appearance of a new roundabout and exit on a state highway ramp in Atlanta’s bustling Midtown sparked concern early last year from neighbors who wondered why Georgia transportation officials would build such a thing without public input. The truth turned out to be much stranger. Despite remaking public roadways, the roundabout on the […]
Category: John Ruch
Posted inColumns
In DeKalb’s protest politics, ‘park reopening’ doesn’t mean what you think it means
Even in the creative political wordplay that abounds in the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” and “Cop City” protest controversies, it’s pretty special when the words “park reopening” don’t mean what you think they means. DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond last month announced a $1.8 million “plan to reopen” Intrenchment Creek Park, which he ordered closed […]
Posted inColumns
Cox scion’s defection over ‘Cop City’ shines a light on media conflicts, old-money power
The Cox family’s Marxist black sheep very publicly separating from the flock this month over their support of Atlanta’s public safety training center made for a cartoonish passing amusement in the right-wing press. Here in Atlanta, the defection of Jim “Fergie” Chambers Jr. is a bigger story than that. It’s a rare insider’s view of […]
Posted inColumns
An LGBTQ news site disappears in a warning to all media in the digital age
Project Q Atlanta silently disappeared from the web one day in April, sending 14 years of crucial LGBTQ community journalism into a digital netherworld from which it may or may not return. It joins a long list of digital media – famously including Creative Loafing Atlanta – whose archives have been totally or partially lost […]
Posted inColumns
In ‘Vote to Stop Cop City,’ organizers build a democratic challenge to Atlanta’s backroom ways
The “Vote to Stop Cop City” referendum effort may or may not do just that. Either way, its organizers already see the campaign as an unprecedented, history-making challenge to the old “Atlanta Way” of backroom deal-making. The call for direct democracy is coming from a broad coalition of left-wing groups, some with a record of […]
Posted inColumns
‘Cop City’ policing is ripe for a federal civil rights investigation
The time is ripe for a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) civil rights investigation of “Cop City” protest policing, as Atlanta’s long-burning pattern of retaliatory arrests against protesters and journalists is exploding with the fuel of “domestic terrorism” narratives. For nearly 15 years, the City has proven incapable of policing its own police abuses in […]
Posted inColumns
How the ‘Cop City’ protests are shifting state and local politics
I get asked a lot by readers and fellow reporters if I think the Atlanta public safety training center protests have any real chance of stopping the project. I’m no Nostradamus, but I’ve seen stranger things happen to even bigger civic steamrollers. And Atlanta’s protests recently took similar turns as populists and rebels ironically are […]
Posted inColumns
Cell towers rising near Georgia’s historic sites raise questions of bandwidth for review
A plan to erect a 250-foot-tall cell tower on a Civil War battlefield in north Georgia is not the stuff that historic preservationists’ dreams are made of. The battle over the battlefield in Resaca isn’t as simple as it may sound, with an already heavily altered site and a developer willing to compromise on height. […]
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
Amid training center debate, huge properties at other police and fire academies have unclear fate
As the Atlanta City Council deliberates on approving millions for the controversial and under-vetted public safety training center, also under-examined is the future of other police and fire academy sites where the City has already amassed hundreds of acres of land – more than enough for the training center itself. The former police academy on […]
Posted inColumns
Georgia Tech emails about ‘Cop City’ post censorship read like an unfunny sitcom
Concern about the “inflammatory” use of the term “Cop City” was one reason behind Georgia Tech’s censorship last month of a student journalist’s first-person account of critical reporting on Atlanta’s controversial public safety training center, internal emails reveal. The emails read like a script for a sitcom about self-important bureaucrats and butt-covering bosses screwing up […]
Posted inColumns
In the More MARTA crystal ball, is the shortfall $0 or $852M?
Transit expansion always involves some tricky fortune-telling about revenue and ridership. The More MARTA crystal ball, however, could use another shot of Windex, with billion-dollar differences of expert opinion on the budget and no new ridership numbers at all. MARTA says a new financial model shows “no shortfall” in the roughly $1.956 billion first phase […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta Public Schools historic property inventory sets a course for long-term preservation
Atlanta Public Schools has turned an embarrassing demolition debate into a long-term historic preservation system that other government agencies would be wise to imitate.
Posted inLatest News
Governor vetoes bill that would have expanded no-bid contracts for MARTA, local public works
Gov. Brian Kemp has vetoed a mysterious bill that would have expanded no-bid contracts for local public works and MARTA projects, saying there was “no reason” for it. House Bill 193 passed the Georgia General Assembly near the end of its session in March. The bill began as a proposal to boost the size of […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta pays $105K to settle journalist’s arrest lawsuit as protest cases mount
By John Ruch The City of Atlanta has paid $105,000 to settle a photojournalist’s lawsuit over his 2020 arrest while covering a Downtown protest in a case civil liberties attorneys say fits into a long pattern of constitutional violations. The City and police officers involved in the arrest made no admission of wrongdoing by settling […]
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
DeKalb commissioner and petition call for reopening park shuttered in protest crackdown
A DeKalb County commissioner and an online petition are calling for the reopening of a public park shuttered in March to evict “Defend the Atlanta Forest” protesters – a move that could have deep legal and political consequences.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
Atlanta sites, leaders win Georgia Trust historic preservation awards
Several Atlanta-area leaders and sites are among the statewide winners of Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation awards.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
Preservationists and real estate firm partner to showcase metro Atlanta landmarks
The new “Atlanta Legacy Trail” project shows how preservationists and the real estate industry can work together.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
Lakewood Elementary’s role in legendary union strike shows more history we almost lost
Lakewood Elementary played a role in labor union organizing that triggered perhaps the most important strike in U.S. history.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
Pittsburgh joins the list of Atlanta neighborhoods considering historic protections in development frenzy
Add Pittsburgh to the list of Atlanta neighborhoods considering stronger historic protections as a bulwark against madcap redevelopment.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
MARTA proposals in General Assembly include bigger no-bid contracts and bus-lane traffic cameras
MARTA is the subject of proposals at the Georgia General Assembly that also involve questions of spending transparency and the effectiveness of future transit.
