Page
1 2
3 4
Laurels
and wishing wells
 |
|
former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell with Mayor Shirley Franklin |
Decades earlier, Atlanta already had visionary leaders with ideas to
help solve the biggest challenges on today’s plate: traffic, education,
and the historic drought. Franklin says her 92-year-old neighbor
recalls Mayor William Hartsfield used to talk about the need for new
sewers some 50 years ago. Franklin herself served under Mayor Maynard
Jackson, who modernized Atlanta’s international
airport and introduced MARTATA, Atlanta’s transit system. She
subsequently served under Andrew Young, who further expanded MARTATA
and supported an economic revival of downtown. Those mayors believed in
investing for the future, says Franklin.
“There was a great plan 35 years ago to fix our transportation system,”
Franklin says, pausing before delivering her punch. “It was called
MARTATA. MARTATA was envisioned as a transit network to serve the
entire region, but only a fraction of it was undertaken. Therefore, it
failed.”
The same holds true for education in Franklin’s analogy. “Forty years
ago, we desegregated our schools, and we thought, it’s fixed. But we’re
still struggling with the same inequities and problems in educating our
students in the lower socioeconomic segments of our population. We’ve
made some advances, but it is not fixed.”
And, again, even the historic drought that has laid siege to the
Southeast might have been mitigated had Atlanta followed through on the
original plan of 50 years ago that started with Lake Lanier. “Lake
Lanier was a great initiative,” Franklin says. “It was meant to be part
of a network of water systems. But we stopped. We didn’t build the
other reservoirs. It should have been the beginning. It was the end.”
Franklin believes Atlanta has rested on the bold, visionary leadership
of the past too long. While the mayor recognizes the call to do more
with less, she also knows Atlanta will require substantive funding and
public backing of visionary plans to transform itself into a truly
great city. As she says, “You don’t get a bridge built by wishing.”
Continued on next page
 Previous Page
| Top | Next Page 
|
