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  #61  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 12:38 AM
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Scotty Greene, executive director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District, a group that taxes itself to fund roads and other projects in the area, agrees there is widespread frustration about Atlanta's finances. However, Greene argues the best approach is to work with city government, not leave it.

"Why would anybody want to rend the fabric of a great international city?" said Greene, whose membership includes about 300 commercial property owners.


it is honestly the worst idea i've ever heard proposed for Atlanta.
     
     
  #62  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 2:04 AM
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Originally Posted by Fiorenza View Post
Dante,

It may go against your bias to know that not only whites are moving away from the area. Educated, cultured blacks are also moving away and being replaced by less-desirable types. This was first noticed post-Katrina and is a continuing effect. I haven't seen any numbers that support my assertion, but I know of individual cases. These educated black came here looking for opportunity, and end up moving elsewhere...
Where do you think they are going exactly? Anyway I didn't want to argue with you, but I do think it would be nice for people with certain opinions to completely leave the city.

I could care less what color your skin is so it's not like I'm pining over the net loss of white people which isn't even happening. No data shows a drop in education level or income....

Anyway I'm not going to argue. I'm going to be just fine and happy visiting with my little sister in my mother's heavily integrated, upper middle class neighborhood in north Fulton.

I think the old generation and the old way needs to curl up and die....
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  #63  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 3:55 AM
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How do you figure that? People in Buckhead stayed put when the city splintered along racial lines during the decades of "white flight." It's still predominantly white but is actually one of the more successfully integrated parts of Atlanta.

Help me out with the NIMBYism argument, too. In a city of 500,000, Buckhead's got a population of around 100,000. Yet it pays 45% of the property taxes and a huge share of sales taxes and impact fees. That's been going on for decades. Most of the people I know in Buckhead are okay with paying a disproportionate share of the money, but they want some fairness and responsiveness from city government.

In addition, people in Buckhead have been incredibly generous citizens and have created many of our most prized amenities, such as the High Museum, the Symphony, the Aquarium, the pro sports teams, etc. They sit on the boards of CAP, the Midtown Alliance, the Buckhead Coalition, and our major charitable foundations. They've been the major benefactors to hospitals like Emory, the Shepherd Center, Crawford Long, Piedmont and Grady. They support the local universities and have produced excellent mayors like Ivan Allen and Sam Massell. How do you conclude they are NIMBY's for demanding a more responsive and balanced government?
This is not about demanding a more responsive government. This is about seceding. Am I missing something?
     
     
  #64  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 5:30 AM
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  #65  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 10:20 AM
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This is not about demanding a more responsive government. This is about seceding. Am I missing something?
Sorry, I missed your point. I would have considered this a crackpot idea a couple of years ago, but who knows? Maybe there are enough fed up people to give it legs now.
     
     
  #66  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 1:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Fiorenza View Post
Dante,

It may go against your bias to know that not only whites are moving away from the area. Educated, cultured blacks are also moving away and being replaced by less-desirable types. This was first noticed post-Katrina and is a continuing effect. I haven't seen any numbers that support my assertion, but I know of individual cases. These educated black came here looking for opportunity, and end up moving elsewhere...
Acecdotal analysis is worthless.......

Someone posted a few months back real statistics that asserted exactly the opposite, that Atlanta attracts more educated newcomers.

Over course, even "educated" Americans is a relative thing as most are naive and isolated and dont have clue about the rest of the world! (I just had to add that!)
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  #67  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 3:49 PM
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Sorry, I missed your point. I would have considered this a crackpot idea a couple of years ago, but who knows? Maybe there are enough fed up people to give it legs now.
I have to admit I do not know the details, but common sense tells me that with less than 500,000 people spread out in an area of 132 square miles (by comparison New York city is 8 million people over 305 square miles, you can do the math), and most of these people poor and as you mentioned before many corporations outside of the city limits, there is bound not to be enough tax base to maintain properly the huge infrastructure of Atlanta.
Recently things have been done: streets repaved, sidewalks added, not to mention the huge undertaking of fixing the sewers. I think the city is doing a pretty good job considering all of the above. Certainly not the time for Buckhead to leave Atlanta. By the way I live in Buckhead and I appreciate the sidewalks that have been added on Lindbergh that allow me to walk to Marta to go to work.
And why are people in Buckhead complaining? the tax has been increased for everybody and if somebody can afford it it's certainly the rich people in Buckhead...
     
     
  #68  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 3:53 PM
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Originally Posted by Fiorenza View Post
I didn't read the commentary, but I had heard that quote before. I will give you my thoughts, but I don't want this political discussion to spill over into all the threads okay?

I think that quote is honest. There will be people, yourself included, who want to make Obama's race an issue. In fact you brought up all the non-issues that were in Obama's quote. Maybe he was talking about you?

I'm not sure what you thought of that quote, but I don't really see the problem. I assume the commentary is what you wanted my reaction to, but I just chalk it up to more idiots with keyboards.
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Last edited by dante2308; Jun 22, 2008 at 4:14 PM.
     
     
  #69  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 6:54 PM
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What really bugs me is that Obama’s campaign is designed to appeal to voters on the basis of race and class, while anyone who opposes him is “using race as an issue.”
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  #70  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 7:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Curious Atlantan View Post
I have to admit I do not know the details, but common sense tells me that with less than 500,000 people spread out in an area of 132 square miles (by comparison New York city is 8 million people over 305 square miles, you can do the math), and most of these people poor and as you mentioned before many corporations outside of the city limits, there is bound not to be enough tax base to maintain properly the huge infrastructure of Atlanta.
Recently things have been done: streets repaved, sidewalks added, not to mention the huge undertaking of fixing the sewers. I think the city is doing a pretty good job considering all of the above. Certainly not the time for Buckhead to leave Atlanta. By the way I live in Buckhead and I appreciate the sidewalks that have been added on Lindbergh that allow me to walk to Marta to go to work.
And why are people in Buckhead complaining? the tax has been increased for everybody and if somebody can afford it it's certainly the rich people in Buckhead...
In addition to that, wasn't the definition of Buchkead was changed to mean everything between 75 and 85, about 1/5th of the city. I'm sure someone here knows when this change occured but I would imagine that it consumed nearly all of the nice neighborhoods in the city at the time. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea given this sub-city mentality we see now.

Last edited by smArTaLlone; Jun 22, 2008 at 8:09 PM.
     
     
  #71  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 8:03 PM
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What really bugs me is that Obama’s campaign is designed to appeal to voters on the basis of race and class, while anyone who opposes him is “using race as an issue.”
No.
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  #72  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 8:33 PM
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We'll have to agree to disagree.
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  #73  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 8:51 PM
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Originally Posted by smArTaLlone View Post
In addition to that, wasn't the definition of Buchkead was changed to mean everything between 75 and 85, about 1/5th of the city. I'm sure someone here knows when this change occured but I would imagine that it consumed nearly all of the nice neighborhoods in the city at the time. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea given this sub-city mentality we see now.
Buckhead came into the city in 1952 under the so-called Plan of Improvement. Blacks were becoming more numerous inside the city limits and whites were starting to move to the burbs in large numbers. Mayor Hartsfield felt that he could retain a white majority if he could extend the city limits to include the northside where many of the city's affluent residents lived. There weren't sufficient votes on the first few tries but eventually the Buckhead neighborhoods agreed to be annexed. The plan also brought even larger areas into the city on the south and west sides of town.

If the annexation had not occurred it's almost certain that Buckhead would have become its own city (or been swept up into another city) long ago. That would have been enormously destabilizing and isolating for the city of Atlanta and might well have spelled its demise. Hartsfield's motives were hardly pure but at least he had the foresight not to let a major part of the city's core slip away.

     
     
  #74  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 9:23 PM
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Last edited by Fiorenza; Jun 22, 2008 at 9:34 PM.
     
     
  #75  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 9:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Fiorenza View Post
What really bugs me is that Obama’s campaign is designed to appeal to voters on the basis of race and class, while anyone who opposes him is “using race as an issue.”
Oh, Fiorenza, you know that's baloney. You've been sitting here whaling away for days on what you believe Obama's economic plan to be and nobody has suggested that was based on race.

In the larger picture, of course Obama's race is an issue in this campaign. (So is McCain's for that matter, but people don't talk about it because he's a member of the race presidential candidates are expected to belong to). But think about it -- when I was growing up, blacks could not buy a hot dog or a cup of coffee in any restaurant preferred by white people. They had to step off the elevator if I got on, and that applied even if the black person was a doctor or a college professor and I was just a little snot-nosed white kid. Blacks could not attend state universities like Georgia Tech or the University of Georgia, although they were required to pay for them. A black police officer could not arrest a white person. Blacks were not allowed to go to the movies, ride on a train or airplane, go to the doctor, stay in a hotel or even go to the bathroom unless they remained in strictly segregated areas. And if they dared to violate any of these or countless other rules, they risked a severe beating, lynching, prison, or in some cities having the police dogs and fire hoses turned on them. A man who almost became mayor of Atlanta and was later elected governor of Georgia gained his fame by selling axe handles as a symbol of white supremacy. I saw the KKK marching through the streets of downtown Atlanta in broad daylight.

While I'm older than dirt, none of this was very long ago at all. Blacks had been held in legal slavery for 350 years in America, and then for another 100 years after than in conditions which weren't a whole lot better.

And if you think all this is washed away in a few years, think about your own life. I'll bet you $100 that you can remember every time you or your family was put down, insulted or slighted, and that it still stings and burns when you think about it.

When I was growing up, I don't believe it was on anybody's radar screen that a black guy like Barack Obama could be a serious candidate for president of the United States with a decent chance of winning. So yeah, his race is a big deal.

That certainly doesn't make him immune from criticism and he's getting truckloads of it daily. And so he should, just like every other candidate. I've yet to hear Obama complain that it is racist, but if it is, too bad. In my opinion it perpetuates racism to not talk about it. Let's get all that crap out on the table and start dealing with it. Obama's tough enough to handle it.

What can white people do about this? Well, for one thing they can quit getting all bowed up and thin-skinned about the fear that somebody somewhere might say they are racist. So what? Get over it. Maybe we are in some ways or maybe we're not, but we're never going to get anywhere if people (yes, liberals as well as conservatives) can't get over this phobia about being politically correct. I’m tempted to tell them that if you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen, but frankly I’d rather them come on in and get barbecued with the rest of us.
     
     
  #76  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 10:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Fiorenza View Post
What really bugs me is that Obama’s campaign is designed to appeal to voters on the basis of race and class, while anyone who opposes him is “using race as an issue.”
Fiorenza, you have got to be kidding.........running a divisive campaign would make no sense whatsoever eliminating his chance of being elected

Race is only brought up by opponents of Obama to remind many Americans, that they still are racists deep down!! Bringing up race is virtually the only chance of defeating Obama!!!!! It will make less educated blue collar voters and Southerners vote against their interests because they fear based on race.

Bringing up any type of race issue with Obama hurts Obama, and the Obama campaigns knows that!

Of course, African-Americans are proud of Obama, just as Irish-Americans were proud of Kennedy, and GreekAmericans were proud of Dukakis, (and German-Americans totally embarrassed of Bush).

Of course at the same time the Obama campaign realizes that it is heavily dependent on the African American vote and hispanic vote!

www.BarackObama.com
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  #77  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 10:50 PM
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I like the fact that I've had to add both "Barack" and "Obama" to my spell checker. It's a sign of the changing times.
     
     
  #78  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 11:26 PM
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This is completely off-topic, but I don't give two craps!

Badaddy is officially smoke-free 7 weeks today. And, my ass walked eighteen holes yesterday AND today at Chastain Park. Shot a 89 and 95 respectively.

McCain - SUCKS, next....
     
     
  #79  
Old Posted Jun 22, 2008, 11:55 PM
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Obama supporters refer to McCain as an "Old Man". That's an ageist, divisive slur, but nobody calls them on it.
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  #80  
Old Posted Jun 23, 2008, 12:21 AM
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No More Political Discussion In This Thread. Reserve This Space For Atlanta Specific Discussion Only
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Last edited by dante2308; Jun 23, 2008 at 1:06 AM.
     
     
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