News of Atlanta’s controversial public safety training center getting a final site plan was hard to hear over the sound of political tensions bursting at a January Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee (CSAC) meeting. The chair announced a ban on members speaking to the media – a move one expert says likely violates First Amendment free-speech rights.
Category: John Ruch
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Court decision on guns in leased parkland could be bigger than ‘constitutional carry’
The notion of “Constitutional carry” — the license-free toting of firearms in public — is sucking up all the Second Amendment oxygen in the Gold Dome and governor’s race these days. But a pending decision in a quietly simmering lawsuit could be more consequential in determining where those guns can be carried — specifically if it includes the Atlanta Botanical Garden at Piedmont Park.
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Buckhead cityhood leader’s service on state Board of Corrections raises questions of experience, oversight
With crime as a political driver of the Buckhead cityhood movement, you’d think much would be said about its leader serving as an official in the state criminal justice system.
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Alaska and Buckhead cityhood movements show similar ties to right-wing populism
A truism of the Buckhead cityhood debate is that it’s unique, this spectacle of a huge community trying to secede from a major U.S. city. Thing is, that’s not true.
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‘Adaptive reuse’ of older buildings adapts to pandemic real estate trends
“Adaptive reuse” – the repurposing of older buildings for modern uses – is doing some successful adapting itself as the pandemic shakes up real estate. The urban trend is spreading into suburbs, remaking troubled malls and hotels, and the surge in industrial uses like delivery-oriented ghost kitchens.
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A trailblazing effort to honor metro Atlanta’s Asian, Latino and immigrant communities takes its first step
A trailblazing effort is gearing up to identify and protect historic sites connected with metro Atlanta’s Asian, Latino and immigrant communities.
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A founder of Sandy Springs’ privatized government advises Buckhead cityhood backers
We wouldn’t be talking about Buckhead cityhood if it wasn’t for the landmark 2005 incorporation of its north metro neighbor Sandy Springs amid similar tensions over political unity and government services.
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A closer look at Buckhead cityhood’s claims of public safety consulting and business deals
Bolstering the case for Buckhead cityhood are its advocacy group’s detailed claims of consulting public safety experts and cutting deals to attract new businesses contingent on the secession. But some of those alleged contacts — including a national law firm and the famous former head of the New York and L.A. police departments — say they have had no such talks, and most other claims could not be verified.
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After Confederate controversy, Rome experiments with naming diverse historic landmarks
Once upon a time, the Northwest Georgia city of Rome was ahead of most of the state on historic preservation programs. Now in the wake of a Confederate monument controversy, the city is experimenting with modern methods of diversity in preservation that might once again be a path for other towns to follow.
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AJC’s World Series book chops out Native American controversy
Renewed controversy over the Atlanta Braves’ use of Native American stereotypes was one of the biggest stories surrounding this World Series season. But you wouldn’t know it from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s quickie book published to capitalize on the champs.
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To comedy legend Jerry Farber, helping homeless people is no joke
Jerry Farber is a legend of the Atlanta comedy scene. But his commitment to helping those who help homeless people is no joke.
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Inside Lake Charlotte, the City’s new nature preserve
By John Ruch With butterflies, deer, mysterious stone walls and many, many trees, Southeast Atlanta’s newly opened Lake Charlotte Nature Preserve is already a gem of the city. And that’s just a soft-opening start. There are years of work to come to clear out invasive species for the forest’s health and to plan some rustic […]
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Public safety training center review committee begins testing its powers
Nicole Morado of DeKalb County’s Starlight Heights recalls the moment earlier this year when her community learned that Atlanta’s covertly planned public safety training center would be built on the neighboring Atlanta Prison Farm property.
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In remaking part of Mechanicsville, the future may lie in the past
For the strip of Whitehall Street nestled between Castleberry Hill and Mechanicsville just southwest of Downtown, the future is easy to predict. Redevelopment.
But redevelopment into what and for whom? A skyscraper-crowned mega-project freshly announced for the strip’s Downtown end is one kind of answer. Another future, however, might lie in the past.
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Will Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ push in suburban city elections drown nonpartisan tradition?
From Tucker to Sandy Springs, the state Democratic Party is making good on plans to run candidates in suburban city elections. Think local ripples from the “blue wave” that already washed Republicans out of north metro Congressional and General Assembly seats, helped flip Georgia to Biden, and, Democrats hope, puts one of their own in the Governor’s Office in 2022.
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In a monumental moment, top mayoral candidates agree on changing the ‘Atlanta Way’
If you think 2021 is just another city election, wake up and smell this coffee: All five candidates with any shot at being the next mayor agree that it’s time to reform the “Atlanta Way.”
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How Occupy Atlanta changed city politics 10 years later
By John Ruch Oct. 6 marks the 10th anniversary of tent-dwellers staking out turf in Woodruff Park as the Occupy protest movement came to Atlanta. Derided by conservatives and many progressives alike, and forcibly evicted less than three weeks later by cops with helicopters and horses, Occupy Atlanta has evaporated as a brand name like […]
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How Buckhead cityhood’s politics play into the Red-vs.-Blue battle of 2022
By John Ruch Amid all the controversy about the political question of Buckhead cityhood, it’s easy to overlook the significance of the date voters would be asked to answer it: Nov. 8, 2022. The debate so far has swirled around hot-button issues of crime and race and the nit-picking details of dueling pro-and-con financial studies. […]
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From R.E.M. to GPB, a student documents the bittersweet history of college radio powerhouse WRAS
By John Ruch College radio is one of the cultural icons that made me fall in love with Atlanta bad enough to move here. The student-run broadcasts of Georgia State’s WRAS (aka “Album 88”) and Georgia Tech’s WREK were among the ways Atlanta, unlike most every other major city, had not yet been corporatized, homogenized […]
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In forum on housing affordability, council president candidates reveal how they think and lead
The leading City Council president candidates gave some revelatory answers at a Sept. 11 forum focused on housing affordability. Revelatory not because they or Atlanta are likely to magically solve the nationally intractable affordability problem, but exactly because they’re not. Granted, the next council prez — whose powers are mostly procedural — might collaborate with […]
