By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 3, 2010
The good news for Atlanta is the headquarters for the new Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. is staying put.
The not-so-good news is that once it completes its $13 billion transaction with The Coca-Cola Co., CCE will go from 70,000 employees to 13,000 employees. And CCE’s workforce in Atlanta will go from 3,500 employees to about 100.
The other 3,400 employees will join Coca-Cola. About
By Guest Columnist BRUCE GUNTER, founder and president of Progressive Redevelopment Inc.
Eventually, Atlanta will emerge from this devastating recession, but it will not look the same when it does. Now retrenching from an over-fed housing sector, the new economic and geographic landscape will impact many housing-related business sectors, entire neighborhoods, thousands of families, and land development patterns.
In this larger context, what will become of affordable housing in Atlanta?
First, our local markets are being shaped by national economic and financial factors. Homeownership rates will decline significantly, despite record low mortgage interest rates and more reasonable home prices.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, August 27, 2010
The Buckhead Theatre’s Aug. 24 premiere of the latest documentary by Andrew Young Productions, “Change in the Wind,” certainly had an Atlanta flavor.
It truly is an Atlanta documentary that reveals the improbable partnership between Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays and “Gone With The Wind” author Margaret Mitchell.
By Maria Saporta
What a difference 20 months can make.
Back in the fall of 2008, Delta Air Lines was writing letters to bond underwriters questioning Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport’s construction plans and the related costs.
It was pretty clear that at the time, Delta would not support the city’s plans to issue bonds to build the new international terminal at the airport and that the airline was questioning the projected costs of the project.
Now consider today’s news conference.
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Committee for Progress will have continuity of leadership for one more year.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was able to convince Phil Kent, CEO of Turner Broadcasting, to continue serving as chairman of the business advisory group through the end of 2011.
For the first time, the ACP board also identified a vice chairman who will chair the organization in 2012. That person will be Jim Hannan, CEO of Georgia-Pacific LLC. Hannan recently chaired the mayor’s search committee for a new chief financial officer for the city.
Why does it seem as though North Carolina is moving forward while Georgia is slipping backwards?
At last week’s Georgia Forward Forum at Macon State University, there was at least one answer to that question.
The keynote speaker of the day was Anita Brown-Graham, director of North Carolina State University’s Institute for Emerging Issues.
Back in the 1950s, North Carolina’s social and economic indicators were at the same level of Mississippi. It was a rural, tobacco- and textile-oriented economy, reminiscent of the old South.
But in the past 50 years, North Carolina has been gaining momentum. In 1990, the population was in North Carolina was
By Guest Columnist EMILY ELLISON, president and CEO of Literacy Action
As morning traffic in Atlanta returns to its pre-summer crawl, signs of the new “season” are everywhere: Heavy backpacks are pulled over shoulders. Peanut butter sandwiches and apples are crammed into lunch boxes.
And families all over the city are rushing out the door, hoping that permission slips have been signed and that summer reading assignments were completed. It’s back-to-school time in Atlanta – an annual rite of passage for everyone from the pre-school set to college students.
What many people don’t realize is that it’s also a time when thousands of adults return to school, adults who
By Maria Saporta
Usually when Nobel Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus visits a city, he comes in for half a day to give a talk and sign some books before going out to his next destination.
But when Yunus came to Atlanta last week, he came for the better part of four days.
“This is very special,” Yunus said of his stay in Atlanta after speaking to a standing-only crowd at Georgia Tech’s College of Management. “When I go to a city, I hardly spend half a day, so this
By Ben Smith and Maria Saporta
Friday, August 27, 2010
The world’s busiest airport needs more than a new general manager. It needs to replace a sizable chunk of its management team, too.
Within the past year, six of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s top 20 executives, including former General Manager Benjamin R. DeCosta, have left. Most appear to have moved on to better
By Maria Saporta
MACON – The two top candidates for governor addressed the Georgia Forward forum Wednesday in separate telephone conversations broadcast to the whole group.
Both candidates were asked the exact same questions, but of course, they had quite diverse answers.
For example, they were asked if they feel there is one Georgia, two Georgias or more.
“Certainly there’s only one Georgia,” said former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, the
By Maria Saporta
MACON – While not indicative of the whole state, people attending the Georgia Forward Forum in Macon had significant consensus in a pre-conference survey.
Laura Meadows, associate director of the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, presented the findings during a Wednesday morning session of the all-day forum.
Asked what were the top issues facing their local communities, the No. 1 response was jobs, followed by education and the lack of public transit. All those
By Maria Saporta
MACON – A gathering of 200 statewide leaders from all sectors has come to Macon State College for an all-day forum on how to move Georgia forward.
The Georgia Forward Forum has been put together by Atlanta-based Central Atlanta Progress in an inaugural effort to unify the whole state.
Macon Mayor Robert Reichert compared the meeting to the thawing that occurs in the spring.
“Renaissance thinking begins slowly and surely with an increase in warmth and l
By Maria Saporta
Friday, August 20, 2010
In the end, the family marriage between the Atlanta Life Financial Group and Jackson Securities lasted less than four years.
Reuben McDaniel III, president and CEO of Jackson Securities, announced Aug. 16 that he was resigning from the job he has held since 1999. The two African-American financial institutions had connections to the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson.
Amnesty International is concerned about the impact of the latest federal district court ruling on Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis.
William Cordery, Amnesty International’s senior development officer for the Southern region, just sent me a press release that has come out of the organization’s Washington office.
Here is the release
(Washington, D.C.) – Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today expressed deep concern that a federal district court decision puts Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis
By Maria Saporta
It’s been a wonderful summer of music.
And even though the heat of the summer is still with us, I know we’re quickly witnessing the end of our summer music season.
One of my guilty pleasures is going to hear live music — indoors or preferably outdoors. I bought tickets to several shows — and sadly the last concert on my dance card was the Jack Johnson show at the Aaron’s Ampitheatre (or as us natives would say — Lakewood).
It used to be that we would kick off the
By Maria Saporta and Ben Smith
Friday, August 20, 2010
The new general manager of Atlanta’s airport will have to deal with a full plate of managerial challenges and politically fraught decisions in the coming months.
The general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is arguably one of the most important public roles in the Atlanta region. As the world’s largest and busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson is the fuel that makes Atlanta the economic engine of the
By Guest Columnist ALEXIS CHASE, executive director, Georgia Interfaith Power & Light.
Energy efficiency and Georgia’s faith community have not always been friends. Most congregations tend to think short-term, rarely considering long-term sustainability when renovating old structures or building new ones; their eyes are fixed on cost and speed.
Fortunately, that’s changing, thanks to an innovative statewide program recently launched by Georgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL). It’s called Power Wise.
We received $400,000 in federal stimulus money enhanced by $200,000 from a private foundation to help Georgia’s faith communities of every religion,
Bipartisanship is still possible — even in a polarized state like Georgia.
That bipartisanship was in full force on Monday, Aug. 16 when U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota) gave a luncheon speech at the Council for Quality Growth’s 25th anniversary celebration at the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North.
Oberstar, who chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, clearly had the clout to bring together politicians on both sides of the aisle.
Among the Georgia politicians in attendance were: U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat; U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican; U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, a Republican; U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat; and former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal,
By Maria Saporta
The two top candidates for governor each spent a half hour this morning talking to the executive committee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber. And both apparently had done their homework.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes, who is the Democratic nominee, was the first one to talk to the group of about 25 business leaders at their regular monthly meeting.
His visit was then followed by former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, who is the Republican nominee for governor.
“They are both well-informed, and both
By Maria Saporta
Friday, August 13, 2010
The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta does not believe that now is a time to be stingy with its dollars. Last year it gave away $140 million to nonprofit organizations in metro Atlanta and beyond.
“Our payout last year was 22 percent,” said Alicia Philipp, president of metro Atlanta’s Community Foundation. “We are getting the money out there. We think that’s an important message. These high-net-worth individuals, who are our donors, want to get the money out
