Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city of Georgia. It is the county seat of Fulton County, although a portion of the city (the 1909 annexation) extends into DeKalb County. According to the July 2005 census estimate, the city has a population of 470,688 and the Atlanta metropolitan area totaled 4,917,717. As of July 1, 2005, Atlanta's combined statistical area, or CSA, is estimated to have a population of 5,249,121.

The city is encompassed by Interstate 285, locally known as the "Perimeter," which has come to delineate the interior of the city from the surrounding suburbs. As a result, terms such as ITP (Inside The Perimeter) and OTP (Outside The Perimeter) have arisen to describe area neighborhoods, residents, and businesses. The Perimeter plays a social and geographical role similar to that of Interstate 495 (Capital Beltway) around Washington, DC.

Post World War II, Atlanta has become widely considered the "Gateway to the New South" or "Capital of the New South" in the media. Due to its phenomenal growth, the city has become the poster-child for rapid urban sprawl and development, serving as the quintessential case study for college students in the study of urban geography worldwide. Today, Atlanta is one of the most economically important cities in the Southern United States, and is considered a gamma global city.

Having a rich history and being increasingly populated by African Americans since the US Civil Rights Movement, Atlanta has long served as an African American cultural and economic center. Since 1974, mayors of Atlanta have been African American, in addition to the majority of fire chiefs, police chiefs, and other high-profile government officials.

Common colloquialisms for the city include A Town, The A-T-L (derived from its IATA airport code), Hotlanta, and The A. It is common for those unfamiliar with Atlanta to associate it with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The international airport is the busiest in the world (in terms of passengers enplaned and deplaned), due, in no small part, to its being the major airline hub of Delta Air Lines.

History

The region where Atlanta and its suburbs were built was originally Creek and Cherokee Native American territory. The Creek land in the eastern part of the metro area (including Decatur) was opened to white settlement in 1823. In 1835, leaders of the Cherokee nation ceded their land to the government in exchange for land out west under the Treaty of New Echota, an act that eventually led to the Trail of Tears. In 1836 the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwest, with the area around Atlantaserving as the terminal. The terminus was originally planned for Decatur, but its citizens did not want it. Besides Decatur, several other suburbs of Atlanta predate the city by several years, including Marietta and Lawrenceville, GA. Terminus grew as a railroad town; later it was renamed Marthasville after then-Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. Marthasville was renamed Atlanta in 1845 (a feminized version of Atlantic suggested by J. Edgar Thomson) and was incorporated as such in 1847.

A slave auction house on Whitehall St., before Sherman burned Atlanta

In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion (the subject of the 1939 film Gone with the Wind). The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible union assets destroyed. The next day, mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. His forces occupied the city for several months, and he then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his punitive march south. After a plea by Father Thomas O'Reilly of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Sherman did not burn the city's churches or hospitals. The remaining war resources were then destroyed in the aftermath and in Sherman's March to the Sea. The fall of Atlanta was a critical point in the Civil War, giving the North more confidence, and (along with the Battle of Mobile Bay) leading to the re-election of Abraham Lincoln and the eventual surrender of the Confederacy.

After the war, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt and soon became the industrial and commercial center of the South. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks (later renamed Fort McPherson) in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the federal government set up a Freedmen's Bureau, which helped establish what is now Clark Atlanta University, one of several historically black colleges in Atlanta. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital. Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", by which he meant a diversification of the economy away from agriculture and a shift from the "Old South" attitudes of slavery and rebellion. As part of the effort to modernize the South, Grady and many others also supported the creation of the Georgia School of Technology (now the Georgia Institute of Technology), which was founded on the city's northern outskirts in 1885.

In 1907, Peachtree Street, the main street of Atlanta, was busy with streetcars and automobiles.

As Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. A race riot in 1906 left at least twelve dead and over seventy injured. In 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish supervisor at an Atlanta factory, was put on trial for raping and murdering a thirteen-year old white employee. After doubts about Frank's guilt led his death sentence to be commuted in 1915, riots broke out in Atlanta and Frank was lynched.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression hit Atlanta. With the city government nearing bankruptcy, the Coca-Cola Company had to help bail out the city's deficit. The federal government stepped in to help Atlantans by establishing Techwood Homes, the nation's first federal housing project in 1935. With the entry of the United States into World War II, soldiers from around the Southeastern United States went through Atlanta to train and later be discharged at Fort McPherson. War-related manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war in 1946, the Communicable Disease Center, later called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was founded in Atlanta from the old Malaria Control in War Areas offices and staff.

In 1951, the city received the All-America City Award, due to its rapid growth and high standard of living in the southern U.S.

In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. For example, on October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed. The "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility. Many believed that Jews, especially those from the northeast, were advocates of the Civil Rights Movement.

In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the US Civil Rights Movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. On October 19, 1960, a sit-in at the lunch counters of several Atlanta department stores led to the arrest of Dr. King and several students, drawing attention from the national media and from presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Despite this incident, Atlanta's political and business leaders fostered Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of Atlanta's public schools. While the city mostly avoided confrontation, small race riots did occur in 1965 and in 1968.

In 1990, the International Olympic Committee selected Atlanta as the site for the Centennial Olympic Games 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Former Mayor Bill Campbell allowed many "tent cities" to be built, creating a carnival atmosphere around the games. Atlanta became the first American capital city to host the Olympics. The games themselves were a wonderful achievement in sports, but they were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which resulted in the death of two people and injured several others. Much later it was determined that the bombing was carried out by North Carolinian Eric Robert Rudolph as an anti-government and pro-life protest.

Geography

Downtown Atlanta Skyline

Midtown Atlanta's skyline

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 343.0 km² (132.4 mi²). 341.2 km² (131.8 mi²) of it is land and 1.8 km² (0.7 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 0.51% water.

At about 1000 feet or 300 meters above mean sea level, Atlanta sits atop a ridge south of the Chattahoochee River. Amongst the 25 largest MSAs, Atlanta is the fourth-highest in elevation, slightly lower than Pittsburgh (the city itself is higher than downtown Pittsburgh, however) and Phoenix, but significantly lower than Denver (1 mile or 1,600 m).

According to folklore, its central avenue, Peachtree Street, runs through the center of the city on the Eastern Continental Divide. In actuality, the divide line enters Atlanta from the southwest, proceeding to downtown. From downtown, the divide line runs eastward along DeKalb Avenue and the CSX rail lines through Decatur. Rainwater that falls on the south and east side runs eventually into the Atlantic Ocean while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide runs into the Gulf of Mexico.

The latter is via the Chattahoochee River, part of the ACF River Basin, and from which Atlanta and many of its neighbors draw most of their water. Being at the far northwestern edge of the city, much of the river's natural habitat is still preserved, in part by the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. Downstream however, excessive water use during droughts and pollution during floods has been a source of contention and legal battles with neighboring states Alabama and Florida.

Climate

Midtown Atlanta in winter, with a blanket of fresh snow

Atlanta has a humid subtropical climate, (Cfa) according to the Köppen classification, with generally hot, humid summers and mild winters by the standards of most of the U.S.

Compared to most large cities around the world at approximately the same latitude (33°39'), such as Beirut, Lebanon; Casablanca, Morocco; Los Angeles, California; and Phoenix, Arizona, Atlanta has much colder winter temperatures. The primary reason for this is that the North American continent extends into high latitudes that allows systems to form and move eastward and southward without obstruction by major mountain ranges. Other factors include Atlanta's distance from large bodies of water; its higher elevation, which can lead to rapid weather changes; prevailing wind patterns; and extensive tree cover, which reduces the urban heat island effect (an advantage during summer).

In the winter, weather systems sweeping south from Canada, through the Midwest, bring temperatures that can reach below 15° Fahrenheit (-9° Celsius) a few times a year. The lowest temperature recorded in the city is -9°F (-22°C), reached on 13 February 1899. It also reached â€"8°F (â€"22°C) in Atlanta in 1985 and â€"5°F (â€"21°C) in 1982. An average year sees frost on 48 days; snowfall, which occurs most years, averages about 2 inches (5 centimeters) annually, but can vary considerably from season to season based on the strength of fronts from the Midwest. The greatest single accumulations of snow have reached nearly a foot in a single storm, with the worst occurring, on January 23, 1940.{{cite web