Success Used to Live Here: What the Fall of Gwinnett County Means for White America

Gwinnett County: 91 percent white in 1990; 44 percent white today

There's an apocryphal story involving Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and President Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, and an address he gave to the historically Black college Clark Atlanta University in the 1980s. While addressing the subject of the eroding tax-base in the city and the fear of a diminishing amount of resources (funds) to allocate, Mr. Young addressed white flight with this ominous warning:

"No matter where they go, we will follow. No matter how far away they move, we will follow. They can't escape us."

Andrew Young is correct; no matter where white people fled to - from the crime, crumbling business sector, private property devaluations, and poor school systems that accompany a majority Black area -   creating thriving communities in the process, the Black Undertow followed. DeKalb and Clayton County went from being thriving majority white counties to, well, majority Black counties that resembled the Atlanta that whites had fled from in the first place.

The declaration of war set forth by Mr. Young proved true: no matter where whites went, Black would follow; importing the same problems that whites had tried to flee from when an area went majority-lack and eventually overwhelmingly the social capital created in the community to the point of breaking all communal bonds that whites had amassed. 

Back in 1985, Oliver Thomas of the Atlanta Journal Constitution tried to put his finger on why Gwinnett was excelling at such at rapid pace [ Basic reason Gwinnett has prospered is its proximity to Atlanta and Hartsfield, 9-15-1985]:

To say that one of Georgia's 159 counties, Gwinnett, was the fastest-growing county in America during the first half of the 1980s is true, though not quite comprehensible. To say that a decadelong explosion of everything from new people, new housing, new offices and more cars has left Gwinnett staggering under its own good fortune, is also true but vague.

So consider the implications of these very real numbers:

In 1975, there were 115,400 people nestled quietly in Gwinnett, just northeast of Atlanta.

Four years later, people were pouring into the county at the rate of 1,000 per month. By 1984, that migration surge had doubled. Twenty-three-thousand, five hundred new folks landed in and around Snellville, Lilburn, Lawrenceville and Duluth in the 12-month period ended this past April 1, pushing Gwinnett's population near the quarter-million mark.

The reasons for this incredible growth are not hard to comprehend.

While the chamber of commerce may credit leadership, and others may claim white-flight, one overriding reason that Gwinnett quickly mushroomed from rural to urban is its proximity to Atlanta and Hartsfield International Airport.

When the Sun Belt migration began, Gwinnett benefited.

Five years ago, a trailer park sprawled over the northwest quadrant of the I-85 and Pleasant Hill Road interchange. Fronting the park, a general store and a gas station serviced the trailer park's residents and those who motored down the little-traveled two-lane road.

Across the street was a lonely diner, a Waffle House.

It was a heralded chamber-of-commerce event when a freight hauling firm built a terminal on the road between the interstate and Highway 23 to the west.

Pleasant Hill today is a junk food addict's heaven, with McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King and Krystal competing with Shoney's, Mrs. Winners and Red Lobster. They all compete against the once monopolistic Waffle House.

Today the Gwinnett Place mall, with its 150 stores, sits where the mobile homes once were, and an acre of land that cost $20,000 three years ago today brings around $218,000.

This area, around Gwinnett Place, is now considered the nerve center of the county, and residential developers fight to build as close to this mecca as possible. Hotels, office complexes, and more retail centers than imagined just a few years ago have sprouted up near the mall.

 Actually, it was the white people who fled to Gwinnett County and created a thriving community out of pasture land that deserve all the credit for the growth of the county; conversely, it is the departure of white people and the rise of the non-white population in Gwinnett County that are to be credited with its decline.

 Such is the state of Gwinnett County now, which was 91 percent white in 1990, but is now majority-minority [Will Immigration Turn Gwinnett Blue, Governing, Josh Goodman, December 11, 2009:

In 1990, Gwinnett was 91 percent white. Now, it is a different place altogether. "Gwinnett as a whole," says Bannister, "is becoming a majority-minority group of people." In fact, it already is one. In the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent American Community Survey, released this fall, the white population was down to 49.9 percent. Marina Peed, an affordable housing developer who works county-wide, says that "there's no lily white anymore anywhere in the county. I doubt if there's a single all-white subdivision in the whole county."

Today, Gwinnett has large populations of blacks, Hispanics and (perhaps most surprisingly) Asians. The county has substantial populations from Indian and Vietnam, as well as people of Asian (especially Korean) descent who are from elsewhere in the United States.

Not only will immigration turn Gwinnett blue - from a solidly Republican county - it will turn all of Georgia blue in a state where Blacks vote in a monolith for Democrats [Shifting Population could help Democrats in Georgia, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Aaron Gould Sheinin, September 2, 2012]

In January 2001, Georgia’s electorate was 72 percent white and 26 percent black, while Hispanics made up less than two-tenths of 1 percent, according to data compiled by the secretary of state. As of Aug. 1, those numbers had changed dramatically.

Blacks now make up 30 percent of active registered voters while whites are at 60 percent. Hispanics make up nearly 2 percent of the electorate after seeing their registration numbers increase from just 933 in 2011 to 85,000 as of Aug. 1.

Thus, Gwinnett County serves as the perfect microcosm for America: whites were able to build a thriving community - replete with crime-free streets, schools (almost with almost all-white pupils) boasting average standardized test scores that made the system one of the tops in the nation, rising property values, and an abundance of the type of social capital that makes opening and being successful in business almost a guarantee - that became the envy of the region. And just as Mr. Young said, "we" (Black people) would follow, early attempts to break the Whitopia in Gwinnett County with the public transit system of MARTA were met with racial resistance [Racism called regional transit roadblock, Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 3, 1987]:

David Chesnut, chairman of the board of MARTA, said Thursday he fears a regional transportation system is a long way off and "the reason is 90 percent a racial issue."

While Gwinnett and Cobb counties experienced their initial growth from the white flight from Fulton and DeKalb counties, said Chesnut, "I am very disturbed when I hear young professionals tell me they are going to form NNIG - No Niggers in Gwinnett."

Regardless of what politicians tell him, he knows such people are being honest, Chesnut told the Buckhead Business Association.

Chesnut also told the association:

"I don't think I need to call any names of politicians who, when asked to comment on the Bernhard Goetz verdict, say, `I think it's awful that that man would have a gun and would with reckless abandon shoot at those poor black folks.'

"Well, I agree, but I also think that it is terrible that there would exist any condition which would warrant somebody to carry a gun on a mass transit system. We at MARTA are doing everything that is humanly possible to eliminate not only someone carrying a gun on the system, but the cause that would warrant someone to want to."

During the recent deliberations over the MARTA fare increase, which took effect Sunday, Chesnut said the transit system needed to attract more white riders. About 75 percent of the system's riders are black, according to a MARTA study.

A look at the racial breakdown of Gwinnett County from 1960 - 2005: From "WHITE FLIGHT AND SPATIAL ASSIMILATION IN NEWLY MULTIRACIAL SUBURBS: THE CASE OF GWINNETT COUNTY, GEORGIA by JAMES LEE"

MARTA never came to Gwinnett County, but a wave of Hispanics immigrants did. You see, white people want cheap housing - which requires cheap labor to keep costs down - so they had no problem having Hispanics build their new homes in areas devoid of Black people.

But guess what? Black people, following the prophecy set by Andrew Young, followed too [Blacks, Hispanics lead metro population growth, Atlanta Journal Constitution, March 18, 2011]:

The last 10 years saw a boom in the number of black, Hispanic and Asian residents in metro Atlanta, while the number of white residents fell in four of the area’s five biggest counties, according to U.S. Census figures released Thursday.

The surge in minorities as a percentage of the population also occurred at the state level. Georgia added 1.5 million people, an 18 percent increase. The Hispanic population grew 96 percent, followed an 81 percent increase in Asian residents and a 26 percent increase in black Georgians. The white population grew less than 6 percent statewide.

Because Atlanta has no natural boundaries (save unsafe neighborhoods that are 100 percent Black), the spread of suburbs can continue in a 360-degree radius. And where ever whites go and setup communities (remember, in 1990 Gwinnett County was 91 percent white after being nearly 100 percent white in 1980), Blacks do follow.

And the demands for political power won't be far behind [Face of Gwinnett's Leadership Slowly Changing, Atlanta Journal Constitution, August 22, 2011]:

Though 'white club' still dominates, signs of diversity taking place.

Gwinnett long ago made headlines as a majority-minority county, a reality that is readily observed on the streets of the county's southern and eastern communities. Diversity is reflected in the faces of the men and women passing by. Among the children on school buses. In the signage lining some populous corridors.But there's at least one area in Gwinnett County where that cultural and ethnic diversity is noticeably absent: the county's leadership. The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners is all-white and home-grown, and most county department heads are white as well. The same can be said for the county's Board of Education, many city councils and the various chiefs of police."It's been a white club out there," said Harvey Newman, a Georgia State University professor of public management.

In theory, as the districts of all elected officials are redrawn to reflect the population shifts revealed by the 2010 census, minorities should gain greater opportunities to elect the candidates they favor. The Voting Rights Act protects minorities from being disenfranchised by having their populations split among several districts. Where concentrations of minorities exist, political districts should reflect those concentrations.

"It would be a travesty that if after redistricting, the entire County Commission and school board is Caucasian --- it would tell me that something went wrong," said state Sen. Curt Thompson, D-Tucker, who grew up in Lilburn.The math is complicated, however, by the fact that minorities often do not vote in proportion to their share of the population. Gwinnett looks to be no different.In 2010, white people made up 44 percent of Gwinnett's population but 59 percent its active voters; black people were 23 percent of the population and 22 percent of active voters; Asians were 11 percent of residents and 5 percent active voters; Hispanics were 20 percent of residents and 4 percent of active voters.

 It won't be long until the new majority-minority is permanently a Democrat stronghold, with the once all-white, all-white Republican county just another reminder of a past where racial socialism didn't reign. And not one white Republican (oxymoron, right?) will dare speak out on this, a tragic reminder that Gwinnett County is but a microcosm for the nation at large.

And with the drop in the overall white percentage of the population, the inevitable drop in the standard of living (a regression to the mean) has occurred in Gwinnett County [Atlanta property taxes: Gwinnett is Foreclosure Central in metro Atlanta
AJC special investigation: County's appraisals have dropped, but not enough, Atlanta Journal Constitution, December 24, 2010]

Two decades ago, Rebecca Carlson's subdivision in Lawrenceville bustled with hard-working, middle-class families. At Christmastime, neighbors lit up their homes with colorful displays. At night, people could walk their streets without fear.
Then subprime mortgages flooded the market, and Quinn Ridge Forest changed. Some new residents let their grass grow 3 feet high, Carlson said. Others let broken windows stay broken. Many longtime homeowners have sold their properties and bolted.

Now, Carlson said, the house next door is filled with renters who come and go. The police have been called to two nearby homes, one for prostitution, the other for illegal drugs.

"I won't let the kids go outside by themselves," said Carlson, 45.

The decay of the neighborhood tracks closely behind the collapse of the housing market. Gwinnett County has become the foreclosure capital of metro Atlanta -- 44 percent of its 10,301 home sales in 2009 were bank sales -- and that foul wave washed over Quinn Ridge Forest, too. At the moment, three of the 12 houses on the market there are bank sales.

The county looks no better in 2010: with 26,502 foreclosure notices for the year, Gwinnett surpassed Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb and Clayton counties, according to Equity Depot, which tracks foreclosure and other real estate trends in metro Atlanta.

And yet, no one ever dares ask the important question: what are the costs associated with Andrew Young's declaration coming true? Well, here's your answer [Gwinnett County’s dramatic demographic shift illustrates question: “Who are We?”, David Pendered, Saporta Report, September 5, 2012]:

The notion that Gwinnett County is home to a population that’s predominately white and affluent is as out-of-date as the idea that two painted water towers along I-85 in Norcross still proclaim: “Success Lives Here.”

The 40-year-old towers were torn down two years ago. In the decade before their demolition, 40,000 whites had moved out of Gwinnett. Now, the county’s population is predominately non-white, and less wealthy and less educated than it was in 2000.

The demographic shift in Gwinnett speaks to the broader question of “Who are We?” That was the topic Wednesday, at the quarterly meeting of the Atlanta Regional Housing Forum.

Out of the entire two-hour program, the most stunning report was provided by Lejla Slowinski, executive director of the Lawrenceville Housing Authority.

Slowinski provided a snapshot of Gwinnett’s population that gave some real heft to the demographic report on the metro Atlanta region that was delivered by Michael Rich, an associate professor of political science at Emory University who heads Emory’s Office of University-Community Partnerships.

Slowinski prefaced her remarks by saying she would talk later about ways in which Gwinnett’s civic and government leaders are leveraging the county’s diversity. But first, she said, she wanted to provide a bit of context about Gwinnett.

Speaking without any visual aids, such as a PowerPoint slide show, Slowinski riveted the audience’s attention with a cascade of nuggets derived from the 2000 and 2010 Census reports. The data shows that Gwinnett isn’t just changing – it is a changed community:

• Per capita income has fallen by $7,000;

• The proportion of whites in the overall population has fallen to 49.3 percent from 67 percent;

• No single Census tract has a white population of greater than 90 percent;

• 32 percent of households speak a language other than English;

• 61 percent of students in the county school system are non-whites;

• High school graduation rates for non-whites rose to 70 percent from 50 percent;

• 25 percent of Gwinnett commuters spend at least 45 minutes a day in the car.

Sources other than the Census provide additional insights:

• 18 percent of Gwinnett’s children live in poverty;

• The county’s poverty rate rose from 5.6 percent in 2000 to 13 percent in 2009;

• The number of foreclosures in Gwinnett has topped Fulton since 2009 (Fulton formerly had the region’s highest number of foreclosures).

One relevant point is that Gwinnett’s government and school board are trying to serve the human needs of this population with an ever-decreasing amount of tax revenues.

At the Piece by Piece annual meeting last week, Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash said the county’s digest has dropped 25 percent during the past five years. That decrease has reduced the amount of property taxes collected by the county and school system, which is the main source of funding for both governments.

“The population has continued to diversify,” Nash said. “According to the 2010 Census, Gwinnett was the most diverse county in the southeast. That very different from what it was 20 years. It’s created language considerations, and the demand for additional types of flexibility in terms of how we deal with the community.”

Slowinski said the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce works diligently to reach out to, and serve, the minority business community. The number of firms owned by Hispanics and African Americans is still a small proportion of the overall mix, but it’s growing, she said.

Success no longer lives in Gwinnett County; diversity does.Those water towers that came crashing down in a controlled demolition boasted about the climate of the county when it was brimming with white families; now, the social capital is all but gone; the great social experiment in diversity continues unabated.

And a county created by "white flight" from Black people, now see "white flight" from what silence on racial matters (yes, it is white people that are responsible for "good schools," and "safe, crime-free subdivisions") will wrought [White Flight in Gwinnett?, Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 15, 2005]:

Mary James, an empty-nester from Snellville, craves the in-town bustle. Michelle Forren is tired of planning life around rush hour in Duluth. And Louise Stewart is fed up with the Spanish-language business signs, backyard chickens and overcrowded homes in her Norcross-area neighborhood.

Though their reasons vary, all three women plan to join an emerging demographic: whites leaving Gwinnett County.

In what might surprise metro Atlantans who remember the nearly lily-white county of old, Gwinnett's non-Hispanic white population declined for the first time last year, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The drop of about 1,500 whites came even as Gwinnett, the state's perennial growth leader, added more than 27,000 residents.

One year doesn't make a trend. And some observers question the census estimates. But the figures offer more evidence that the number of whites is at the very least leveling off in Gwinnett, adding a new dimension to a lightning-fast demographic shift that has transformed a once-uniform suburb into what one Washington think tank called a "mini-Ellis Island."

The number of Hispanics in Gwinnett is now more than 12 times what it was in 1990, according to the latest census estimates. The Asian population has increased more than sixfold. And the black population has grown sevenfold. Until recently, the white population was growing, too, just not as fast. The county is now 57 percent white, down from 90 percent in 1990.

Louise Radloff, a member of the Gwinnett County school board for more than 30 years, said the additions have enriched her district between Norcross and Lilburn. It's the subtractions that hurt. Many schools in the area are now less than 10 percent white.

"It's called white flight," Radloff said. "There is a perception that with the diversity, there is low-income and there is crime. We need to learn to cope with these issues and decide that all men are created equal."

Bart Lewis, chief of the research division at the Atlanta Regional Commission, said any "white flight" from Gwinnett is limited. It's a far cry, he said, from what happened a generation ago in parts of Atlanta and DeKalb County, where neighborhoods changed practically overnight as white families moved to outlying areas such as Gwinnett.

In fact, Lewis finds it hard to believe that the number of whites isn't still rising in Gwinnett. Accurate racial breakdowns are difficult to estimate, particularly at the county level, he said.

Lewis sees the shift in Gwinnett as driven more by economics than race, anyway. Lower-income families scouring metro Atlanta for an affordable house or apartment are landing in the aging neighborhoods of western Gwinnett. Most of them happen to be minorities, Lewis said.

"What I think you're really seeing is an evacuation of more-affluent households of one race replaced by less-affluent people of another race," he said.

For those paying attention, Gwinnett County is the apt metaphor for modern America. And, wherever white people go, wherever they create thriving communities, the warning set-forth by Andrew Young remains:

 "No matter where they go, we will follow. No matter how far away they move, we will follow. They can't escape us."

Success can't live again in America until people dare say the reason Gwinnett County was once the fastest growing county in the nation, and why it now is failing.

Four letters. One word. Race.

Urban Pacification -- The Legacy of the 1996 Olympics

PK Note: Before you read this, take a quick look at this article regarding Billy Payne and his "legacy," and this article on the end of public housing in America. The push to create more "European" cities (white-controlled major cities surrounded by uninhabitable suburbs full of brown and Black people)  in America is underway, but first Black people must be re-located from urban areas to the burbs. The Post-American world is coming: are you prepared?

Our future is that of Paris -- Burning Suburbs full of Black (and Brown) people

The public housing units in Atlanta (which were populated with almost 99% Black people) are almost entirely gone, razed and replaced with mixed-income developments. The former Black inhabitants of these units have been spread throughout metro Atlanta, a bid to export the crime and misery that the city of Atlanta for decades exclusively enjoyed to the once all-white suburbs (where crime and misery was only spoken of when referring to Black-run Atlanta).

This is the legacy of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta -- and nationwide, cities where crime and poverty (Black people) are concentrated in public housing are aping the strategy employed in The City too Busy to Hate to spread the Black Undertow to the suburbs.

It all starts with one of the world's biggest companies, Coca-Cola, and the use of this international conglomerate to pressure the city to change (we call this "Connected Capitalism" -- discussed in great detail in this piece on the Atlanta Public School fiasco at VDare). Back in 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the the city of Atlanta wanted to throw a party in his honor. But the white business elite balked at this idea. Enter Coca-Cola CEO J. Paul Austin, who along with Mayor Ivan Allen:

...summoned key Atlanta business leaders to the Commerce Club's 18th floor dining room, where Austin told them flatly, "It is embarrassing for Coca-Cola to be located in a city that refuses to honor its Nobel Prize winner. We are an international business. The Coca-Cola Company does not need Atlanta. You all need to decide whether Atlanta needs the Coca-Cola Company." Within two hours of the end of the meeting, every ticket to the dinner was sold. (An Easy Burden, Andrew Young, p. 327)

Blackmail. Such a beautiful thing, isn't it?

Not a decade later, once Maynard Jackson had been elected the first Black mayor of the city, the same man who blackmailed the white business community of Atlanta would propose something quite different. Long-time Coca-Cola President Robert Woodruff had donated hundreds of million to the city of Atlanta for the construction of parks, education, and the arts, and now the peddler of sugar water (and one of the leading cause of diabetes) wanted something in return:

From Coca-Cola's headquarters on North Avenue, CEO Paul Austin could look out on Techwood Homes, the nation's first public housing project, long occupied by white tenants, and watch it turning black. Once the transformation was complete, he believed, the crime rate in the neighborhood would triple, endangering his employees. he wanted to relocate the residents to a new facility on the outskirts of town and to fill the 50-acre site with middle-income housing, parks, a shopping mall, and a theater.

Austin approached the mayor with his proposal, and Jackson initially agreed to help him. Once word of the plan became public, however, Jackson instantly backed off, fearing the black community would never forgive him for participating in another episode of "Urban removal." (Atlanta Rising, Rich Allen, p. 180)

Techwood did go 100 % Black; crime got out of control in this area. Paul Austin fears were correct, though he was the same man who had black-mailed Atlanta's white business establishment that Coca-Cola would leave unless they played ball with Black-Run America (BRA).

The concept of "Urban renewal" is quite simply -- remove the Black people who have been concentrated in a certain area (like Techwood, where Coca-Cola CEO Austin correctly observed that crime would increase three-fold) to someplace else. Just get them out of sight, and immediately bulldoze the dilapidated dwellings upon their removal and you'll see an instant decrease in crime.

Besides those Black people who were connected to the Black aristocracy of Atlanta (Mayors Jackson, Andy Young, and Bill Campbell) that was created when they took over the city, your average Black - indeed, the majority of Blacks in Atlanta - are engulfed in the muck of their own nature: the city has some of the highest concentrated Black poverty in America.

Thus, the need of the 1996 Olympics. Chief Executive magazine published this in 1992 concerning the "Urban Blight" that Black people had created in the heart of the city:

Without exception, business leaders hope to share in the financial bonanza that will accompany the Olympic Games. But the black residents of downtown and midtown Atlanta also want a piece of the action, especially those in the Summerhill and Techwood Homes neighborhoods. Their situation concerns Atlanta, if only because the city’s neglected areas could be a source of international shame when the Olympic spotlight shines in 1996.

The main Olympic stadium will be in Summerhill, and Olympic athletes will be housed in a new village on the Georgia Tech campus. The school adjoins both Coca-Cola headquarters and the Tech-wood Homes, the oldest, if not the happiest, U.S. housing project.

Buckhead, Sandy Springs and Chamblee. “Thousands of people new to Atlanta have never been downtown,” the article continued.

“To many of them, especially white suburbanites, downtown looks unfamiliar.”

The job growth in the northern part of the city (strangely, it's the part of Atlanta that will begin the secession movement - just in case the city doesn't go white - starting in 2013) is entirely due to the ingenuity of the white people who live there, and their ability to create self communities that outside investors feel safe in investing capital in.

The "Urban Blight" that seems to pop up wherever Black people are the demographic majority of, isn't conducive to outside investments and sustaining a strong business community is entirely the fault of Black people.

Whites are safe in their suburbs for the same reason Coca-Cola CEO Austin worried about the changing demographics of Techwood -- because Black people are responsible for virtually all the crime in Atlanta.

Cue the 1996 Olympics and the ability to use the games as a way to remove the 'cancer' of "Urban Blight" from the city and disperse it to the suburbs of Atlanta (Clayton County is the prime example of what happens when concentrated Black poverty is imported to a majority white suburb). The New York Times bemoaned the move in the early 1990s (Atlanta's Olympic Park Plan Reveals the Complications of Urban Renewal, Peter Applebome, December 19, 1993), but changed its tune in 1996 when Ken Edelstein wrote these words (A New Mixed-Use Development for Atlanta):

Techwood Homes and Clark Howell Homes were once considered models of a new wave in low-income housing. In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the first units of what would quickly sprawl out into 54 acres of red-brick, garden-style apartment buildings.

In recent years, however, civic leaders have bemoaned the crime, drug dealing and vandalism that crept across the projects. At one point the authority declared 500 of the units unsuitable for habitation.

Business leaders fretted that Techwood and Clark Howell were eyesores nestled between downtown office towers, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the fortress-like headquarters of the Coca-Cola Company. The spotlight shone more harshly on the two projects in the 90's when Olympic organizers built their athletes' village on Techwood's northern boundary and constructed a new Centennial Olympic Park two blocks to the south.

Now, most of the 1,100 units have been razed and nearly all residents have been moved out. Some former tenants have been shifted to private housing and enrolled in a voucher program to supplement their rent.

Business leaders are viewing the new development as an anchor in a still unsteady downtown revival that has followed on the heels of this summer's Games. Centennial Olympic Park, small apartment complexes, a new 1.6-million-square-foot Federal office building, plans for a basketball arena and efforts to establish a new entertainment district have raised hopes that downtown's sterile west side will become a showcase on the doorstep of the city's 2.5 million-square-foot convention facility, the Georgia World Congress Center.

''Any time you clear out a blighted area you're certainly going to improve the areas around it,'' said Gerald L. Bartels, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. But the new housing complex also makes the whole area easier to redevelop, Mr. Bartels said, because it creates a better link between downtown and Georgia Tech. AND since it is a mixed-income development, it may help demonstrate that the downtown area is an acceptable place for middle-income people to live, he said.

"Urban Blight" will always follow Black people wherever they go, be it via Section 8 Vouchers or through a migration shifts such as the so-called "Great Migration" of Blacks out of the south which turned Detroit, Chicago, Gary, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Baltimore into -- larger scale versions of Techwood.

Coca-Cola's CEO Austin pressured the white establishment to capitulate to BRA in 1964; then, when he couldn't push the rising concentration of the Black Undertow out of the city (and from the view of his employees in the Coca-Cola highrise overlooking Techwood), the 1996 Olympics was used as a cover for "Urban Pacification." Courtesy of a Georgia State research paper (The Olympic Class: The Politics Behind the 1996Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games), we learn this:

The poor African-American neighborhoods being displaced existed within the core of downtown Atlanta, in close proximity to the Olympic Village where athletes would be housed and other Olympic sites. Additionally, Techwood Homes was near two esteemed Games planners, Coca-Cola and Georgia Tech. The process of the tenant displacement and demolition
of public housing and neighborhoods such as Summerhill lacked in “southern hospitality.”

While the result ultimately removed large concentrations of poverty and crime from the view of visitors to Atlanta, the opportunism that provided the impetus to break up this core of poverty did not actually provide resolve to the residents. Within Techwood Homes and Clark-Howell Homes, the Atlanta Housing Authority demolished these complexes without a mechanism to assist those that were being displaced in finding housing. Furthermore, the poverty concentrations were merely transplanted to the southern suburbs, beyond areas of business or tourism.

Now, you should understand why 70% Black Clayton County (it was 75% white in 1990) would re-elect Victor Hill as sheriff; the "Urban Pacification" of the 1996 Olympics enriched the county with the citizens who were once concentrated in public housing in Atlanta.

The Black Undertow always, always overwhelms.

This is the legacy of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta -- and now, other cities throughout the dying empire known as the United States of America will jettison the concentrated areas of "Urban Blight" within their city limits to the suburbs; utilizing the model set-forth in Atlanta.

The end of the Black Mecca is upon us, though the white citizens of North Fulton County have doubled-down (the creation of incorporated cities like Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, Johns Creek, and Dunwoody) just in case it doesn't happen in 2013.

Your Adventure, Your Way

Portland: This could be the core city population of Atlanta

It shouldn't be funny, but it is. The Atlanta Journal Constitution published an article today (Should Atlanta follow Portland with T-SPLOST?Streetcar neighborhoods lure young, creative types to Oregon city, but face criticism, July 22, 2012, Ariel Hart) that - once you know the answer as to the glaring difference between the two cities - should cause to have a solid laugh.

Well, it's better to laugh then cry.

What does Hart write?:

Raised in Florida suburbs, J'ena SanCartier and Philip Losasso know Atlanta well — as the traffic jam they dreaded on their way to somewhere else.

Relocating from Florida last year, the artist and software developer never considered Atlanta. They flew 2,500 miles away to a new home in Portland. Now, instead of highways, they travel via streetcar. And that's how they like it. 

No: "love it," in SanCartier's words. 

Multiply their story by thousands and you get a pretty good picture of one way Portland differs from Atlanta: since 2000 it has excelled at attracting young, educated, so-called "creative class" workers. The dominant reason, according to one narrative prevalent among city planners, is that young folks gravitate to high-energy, walkable, eclectic neighborhoods where they don't need cars — and that projects like Portland's streetcar help create those neighborhoods. 

Architects of the Atlanta Beltline, a $602 million chunk of the July 31 regional transportation referendum, hail it as just such a cityscape-altering project. They even hired the man who wrote the Portland streetcar's plan to write a plan for the Beltline. 

"Portland, Oregon, is the model in the U.S.," Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in 2010, upon winning a grant to build a streetcar line that he called the "spine" of the Beltline. "We have strong evidence that infrastructure creates jobs and stimulates economic investment." 

The holy grail for many cities these days is the group some researchers call "young creatives." They're educated, relatively affluent and consume less in the way of government services than children or the elderly. 

In the race to attract them, Portland is doing much better than Atlanta. Within the last decade, Atlanta saw a 10 percent increase to Portland's 24 percent, said Joe Cortright, a researcher who studies the demographic of 25-to-34 year-olds with college degrees. 

Why? Neighborhoods such as the Pearl, where you don't have to have a car, are one reason, Cortright said. "Transit is sort of part of a package of things that talented young people are looking for in cities." 

Atlanta is not Portland
 
Across metro Atlanta, many Beltline opponents don't much care what people in Portland like.

"We have chosen a land-use pattern," and it's not dense, said Baruch Feigenbaum, an analyst with the free-market Reason Foundation. "From my perspective we should be producing the transportation system that people want." 

Even some transit advocates who support the Beltline shy away from the Portland analogy. "Let's face it," said Ashley Robbins, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit, "Atlanta's not Portland." 

Eighty-one percent of metro Portlandians commute by car, and in the city itself 6 percent commute by bike, an astronomical number. In metro Atlanta, 88 percent commute by car and the next largest group is telecommuters. 

But Atlanta does have pockets of dense, walkable space, including some neighborhoods that would be linked by the Beltline, such as Inman Park, Georgia Tech and Poncey-Highland. In parts of Atlanta, a quarter of commuting is done by transit, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.

 What are the similarities between Portland and Atlanta, before we get started with this adventure: for one thing, both are plagued by crime that is primarily the byproduct of each respective city's Black population. Though, Portland is less than 8 percent Black, the crime rates are comparable to Atlanta's when it comes to Black domination of police blotter.

With a core urban population that is 78 percent white (and a metro population that 80 percent white), it is precisely this "embarrassing whiteness" that attracts the so-called 'creative class' of workers to Portland.

Atlanta's core urban population is only 36 percent white (and a metro population that is 55 percent white), which means that the "creative class" of workers must act as 'urban pioneers' when they move into the city -- a proposition that is becoming increasingly dangerous.

Perhaps that's why Portland can have public transportation that works, for the "creative class" has no desire to spend hours upon hours of their precious time commuting to and from work in a metal coffin, which is the price of living a safe existence in the metro Atlanta area -- courtesy of the Black Undertow.

Portland's Black Undertow population is still being courted to enjoy the fruits of white people's labor when it comes to creating sustainable cities that have safe streets for commuting to and from work on bikes:

The staff at Community Cycling Center, a 15 year old Portland-based nonprofit that aims to increase access to bicycling, has been doing some soul searching in the last few years.

In the process, community and programs director Alison Hill Graves says they started looking around the area they serve (a five-mile radius around their NE 17th and Alberta retail shop). "We saw a big divide in terms of who's riding bikes and who isn't."

Alison Graves

Or, to put it more plainly, "The people riding and making decisions about bicycles is a white, middle class group."

The result: The CCC is undertaking an initiative it calls Understanding Barriers to Bicycling. The effort is funded by a grant from Metro that comes with a social justice stipulation.

Their first step in the process was to spend much of 2009 meeting with area leaders and organizations, particularly those that represent African Americans, African immigrants, Latinos/Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. CCC staff told the groups about their work, and then asked questions about what might be preventing people from riding bicycles.

 If you were to replace the population of the core city of Portland (550,000 -- 78 percent of whom are white), with the population of the core city of Atlanta (432,000 -- 36 percent of whom are white), what would happen? What would the fate of each city be?

Where would you rather live? The new and improved Portland, which would see a reduction of its overall core city population by 22 percent, conceivably making congestion a thing of that "embarrassing white" past; or would you rather venture down south to that ghastly new Atlanta, with a population of... overwhelming white people.

78 percent to be exact.

Well, it should be obvious that the Atlanta Beltline project would instantly attract massive outside investors, who would be lining up to take advantage of an improvement to the city's infrastructure that no longer has the shadow of Blackness --  which plagues MARTA -- hanging ominously in the background.

In fact, Atlanta's metro system -- with the "creative class" and 'whiteness' imported from Portland -- would find new life that it has been desperate for since... its inception in 1973. Just look at this February 11, 2001 article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution by John McCosh (MARTA calls on marketers for image aid/Can soft drinks fill empty seats?), which laments the reputation MARTA had unceremoniously acquired:

MARTA's No. 1 image problem is a perception that the system is unsafe, but that could be fixed, in part, with a few well-placed Coca-Cola vending machines. So says a marketing proposal to renovate MARTA's image as the transit agency embarks on a $700,000 program this month to win more riders and expand its reach. People feel safe and comforted when they're near the familiar red-and-white Coke logo, says the Atlanta marketing firm Turner Fernandez Turner.

Acknowledging "this is going to sound crazy," the firm suggests that putting Coke vending machines on MARTA trains would conjure up "all sorts of positive images of childhood, security, stability and Americana."

Naturally, the proposal notes, giving MARTA riders a Coke and a smile would require the transit agency to consider ending its long ban on consuming beverages on its buses and rail cars.

Clayton and Gwinnett counties, which declined to join the MARTA system in past years, are starting their own bus services this year. That effectively walls off MARTA's expansion to the northeast and south, elements of the agency's long-range plan for three decades.

For the first time in decades, MARTA is in a no-growth mode, with no new rail stations funded or under construction.

MARTA's core jurisdictions -- Atlanta and DeKalb and Fulton counties -- recently declined to extend their commitment to collecting a 1 percent sales tax for support of the system, a decision that could be reconsidered later this year. If at least two of the three jurisdictions don't change their position, the system will fall out of line for future federal funding.

MARTA is concerned, and it will be addressing its image this year as part of a national campaign pushed by the American Public Transit Association to boost the public perception of mass transit. The association, which is holding a marketing workshop in Atlanta later this month, is hoping to fund a $5 million nationwide campaign over five years to win more riders.

"We did some polling and focus groups and did a list of priorities, and as an industry public transit's image just wasn't very good," said Amy Coggins, a spokeswoman for the association. Also, a survey a year ago found that, when asked to rank public transit as a concern, people placed it well below education and crime.

In many ways, MARTA's image problems are typical of systems throughout the country.

"People in the suburbs think MARTA is a black, transit-dependent system," said the agency's chairman, Bill Moseley. "Some people are saying they don't like the MARTA name."

For three decades the MARTA acronym has been the subject of a racially charged joke: "You know what MARTA really stands for, don't you? Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta."

"I was told that the first week I moved here in the 1980s," Moseley said. "Maybe we can change the name to RTA and it can be the Redneck Transit Authority."

Twelve years ago, the agency considered a name change as it prepared to pitch an expansion to Gwinnett County voters, in part because it was common knowledge that the acronym was being altered into an ethnic joke. An Internet search of the phrase shows it turns up in national publications such as The New Republic and as far away as Turkey.

It's that kind of ingrained tarnish the marketers will be challenged to fix. And if they can't, MARTA officials say they're even open to the idea of changing the name.
But giving up on the MARTA name means giving up an identity many immediately associate with transportation.

"The biggest question is, 'Is there equity in the current name?' " said Mike Paul, a New York marketing consultant who is not among the bidders for the MARTA contract. "If there is equity, then you stay with the name."

The $700,000 contract to study MARTA's image will be just the beginning of the promotion effort.

"My friends in marketing tell me you can spend millions and millions on this kind of thing," Moseley said.

Were the population of Portland to switch with Atlanta's core city population, the need for a marketing firm to find a new pitch to convince people to ride the system that once moved "Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta" would be... unnecessary. So would the problem addressed in a  December 7, 2000 article the AJC published by Ernie Suggs (Complaint: MARTA hike based on bias), showcasing why MARTA was in so much trouble:

For many, a quarter doesn't mean that much. But for others, particularly the poor and disabled who depend on MARTA, an impending 25-cent fare increase could be a matter of livelihood. "This will have a negative, disproportionate and discriminatory effect on the system's transit-dependent riders -- with over 75 percent being African-American," said Temita S. Davis.

Davis is a member of the Metropolitan Atlanta Transportation Equity Coalition or MATEC, a 1-year-old grass-roots organization that looks at transportation issues in metro Atlanta. They held a news conference Wednesday to outline a complaint filed on Nov. 30, with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration against MARTA.

"MARTA hasn't responded to us verbally, or in writing," said Davis. "They have overlooked us."

MARTA spokeswoman Dee Baker said the transportation organization is aware of MATEC's complaint, but can't proceed or comment until they hear from the DOT or the FTA.

MARTA announced the increase earlier this year to make up a $6 million shortfall.
Starting Jan. 1, the fare will jump from $1.50 to $1.75; weekly fare cards from $12 to $13; and monthly fare cards from $45 to $52.50.

MATEC's complaint states that:
The fare increase is based on race, because it would impact the MARTA-dependent African-American community more, while the benefits of the increase would help white communities.

MARTA discriminates against races, by not providing enough security, Spanish language signs and bus shelters in minority communities.

MARTA discriminates against the disabled, by denying them equal access to public buses and poorly maintaining equipment designed to aid the disabled, like bus lifts, escalators and elevators.

So choose your own adventure in the thought-experiment from above: what would happen to Atlanta if Portland's core city population replaced the current population, which clamors for the passing of the July 31st TSPLOST vote because it means finding new ways to tax the dwindling metro white population to create jobs that go primarily to Black people?

Where would you rather live?

Choose your own adventure.

Now, consider how quickly Atlanta would find solutions to its commuting problems were this scenario of population swapping with Portland to occur; now, consider the quick collapse of Portland as a destination for the "creative class" migration it enjoys now.

Welcome to Black-Run America (BRA), where Ariel Hart can't bother to mention the glaring elephant in the room when it comes to the difference between Portland and Atlanta.

Point of No Return

A view to a kill: Cabbagetown kidnapping ATM footage

Metro Atlanta is dying,  the cancer known as the Black Undertow spreading from the containment zone of downtown Atlanta and ensuring that Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Rockdale, Newton, Cobb, and even Fayette County get an unhealthy dose of the very thing that once drove white people to flee for the suburbs to begin with.

Mike King wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (Racial shifts speak volumes,And metro Atlanta will have to listen; March 9, 2006) that one of America's most affluent regions must become must another mediocre area of economic stagnation, inadequate school systems, and high-crime zones:

The popular perception of metro Atlanta as an urban core of blacks surrounded by white suburban counties grew increasingly out of date during the 1990s, and has collapsed completely in the first half of the current decade.

From 2000 to 2004, blacks, Hispanics and other racial minorities accounted for more than 80 percent of population growth in the 28-county metropolitan Atlanta area, according to a report issued this week by the Brookings Institution. Fifteen years ago, whites represented 71 percent of the region's population; today, they make up 57 percent of the 4.7 million people in metro Atlanta.

Think of the growth trend this way: Every year, the metro area adds about 100,000 people, the vast majority moving into the suburban and exurban counties surrounding the city. Four of every five of the newcomers are minorities.

In the first four years of the decade, more than 183,000 blacks have moved into metro Atlanta, by far the largest in-migration of blacks in the country. In 1990, metro Atlanta had the seventh largest black population in the country. By 2004, its black population ranked only behind metro New York and Chicago. At its rate of growth, there will be more blacks in metro Atlanta than in metro Chicago by the end of the decade, the Brookings report predicts.

As whites become the minority in places like Clayton County, the fortunes of the latter grow dark as the minority population rises. Now, all of metro Atlanta is headed in that ignominious direction, while white people - long weary of traveling long, arduous commutes to get to and from work - move into the downtown area.

But what awaits white people in downtown Atlanta is the exact same thing that now is popping up in formerly crime-free metro Atlanta white enclaves, a reminder that you can only escape the Black Undertow for so long...

SWPL whites, mugged by reality on July 4th

Fayette County is being submerged by the Black Undertow, and the culture being imported to the metro Atlanta county is exactly that which white people fled from in the first place. Reports The Citizen (Female Resident Shot in PTC Home Invasion, July 14, 2012), a white family was the victim of a home invasion by two Black males:

Peachtree City Police are searching for two men involved in a home invasion Friday night on Woodland Drive near Robinson Road in Peachtree City. One of the residents suffered an injury from a shotgun blast as she fled the house in an attempt to escape and summon help.
Peachtree City Police spokesperson Rosanna Dove said officers responded at approximately 10:24 p.m. Friday night to a possible home invasion with shots fired inside the Woodland Drive residence.

Dove said three residents were home at the time of the incident.
Dove said preliminary information pertaining to the home invasion indicates that two black males entered the residence through an unlocked door and once inside they ordered the female victim to relinquish money.

Statements indicate that the offenders carried shotguns and believed there was a sum of money inside the residence the victim had access to. The two offenders are described as African-American males, in their mid-twenties with dark complexions, both about 5’8” to 6’ tall and medium to slender in build, Dove said.

Dove also noted that two male residents were at home during the incident.

“One resident was in an adjacent bedroom and came into the living room after hearing the commotion. As he did, he was confronted by one of the offenders who pointed a shotgun at him directing him to the living room floor,” Dove said. “While this was taking place, the female victim fled from the residence but was pursued by one of the offenders. The offender fired a round from a shotgun at the victim. The victim was grazed on her head by a pellet as she continued to flee from the area.”

 This is huge, huge news. Peachtree City is one of the top cities in America (especially for relocating and starting a family because of the excellent school system, a byproduct of being more than 90 percent white) and to have the type of Black criminal activity invade the city that once was the stuff of nightmares only shown on the 6 o'clock nightly news broadcasts... well, it's a reminder of the joy of diversity.

How do you think the Atlanta Journal Constitution covered this Black home invasion of a white family? By completely ignoring the racial aspect of the story:

A Peachtree City grandmother was beaten and grazed with a shotgun pellet during a home invasion Friday night, but she fought back and escaped the attack, according to a Channel 2 Action News report.

"I was not going to be executed in my own home," Cece Coffee told Channel 2. Coffee descried the harrowing experience she said she had with two suspects armed with a shotgun.

Coffee said the men were in their 20s and wearing all black, with black bandannas covering their faces. She said they left in a dark-colored pickup truck.

 So... what did those two men look like Atlanta Journal Constitution? Who should the fine residents of Peachtree City be on the look out for?

The answer is the exact racial group of assailants that targeted an area near downtown Atlanta that is seeing a renaissance of economic activity (entirely due to white gentrification and a brush back of Black urban blight). You see, Black gunmen targeted a group of white people on the porch of their Cabbagetown home during a July 4th party. Of course, the Atlanta Journal Constitution omitted this part from their coverage of the attack:

Gunmen robbed five people from their front porch in Cabbagetown Tuesday night and then kidnapped a man, Atlanta police said.

The robbery is the most recent in a series of crimes that have shocked and scared Cabbagetown residents, said Sam Gris, public safety chairman for the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association.

"It just seems like people are getting more and more brazen," Gris said. "It's a frustrating time to be in town."

The robbery occurred at a house on Estoria Street around 11 p.m., said police spokesman Carlos Campos.

Gris sent The Atlanta Journal-Constitution an excerpt of the preliminary police report detailing the robbery.

According to the officer's report, five people were sitting on the porch when they saw three men walk by. About 10 minutes later, the men returned with handguns and ordered everyone inside the house.

Once inside, the assailants forced the victims to lie on the ground and took their phones, according to the report. The assailants remained in the home for about 30 minutes, going through rooms and collecting computers.

Then, one assailant suggested that a male victim might have money because he was dressed nicely. So, they forced him into a car waiting outside the home and made him to withdraw money from several nearby ATM's. The cash amount stolen was not disclosed.

According to the report, the assailants told the victim they would keep him until after midnight in order to withdraw more money. When the victim was unable to withdraw more money, one assailant suggested they kill him.

However, a female in the car advised them not to, and the victim was thrown out of the vehicle near Memorial and Columbia drives. A passerby noticed the victim looked disoriented and gave him a ride back to the scene of the robbery.

Gris said he received the excerpt from Valencia Hudson, public safety liaison for City Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong.

Campos said Homicide Unit investigators, who are handling the case even though no one was killed, were not available for comment. He said they were working to identify the suspects.

Gris, a former police officer, said the incident could have ended much worse. "A 30-minute home invasion and kidnapping — that's got all the making of someone being hurt and killed," he said.

In the past, Gris said, the worst crimes residents had to deal with were graffiti or car break-ins, but recently crimes have become more severe.

Campos said, "Crimes have started occurring in areas where we historically have not had problems."

The police spokesman said total arrests in Zone 6, which includes Cabbagetown, have increased by 44 percent this year. He said police have arrested individuals in 12 burglaries and seven robberies this month. He urged residents to report any suspicious activity to police.

A newscast describing the attack can be viewed here.

Southeast Atlanta was once one of the most violent places in all of America; now, many of those residents have matriculated into Clayton and Fayette County, pushed out by white gentrification and rising home values. They now seek areas with lower property value, which can readily be found in nearly all-Black Riverdale. But the problems that urban pioneers face when venturing into territory that has long been home to violent Black people, is that the violence will only go away when all Black people are removed. If not, then urban pioneers will become unwitting participants in this violence.

So what happened in the July 4th assault in Cabbagetown?

After seeing surveillance footage on Channel 2 Action News, parents drove their 15-year-old son to a police station to be arrested Thursday for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of a man from a Cabbagetown porch, the TV station reported.

Investigators had released a crystal-clear snapshot of one of three suspects involved in the July 3 incident.

The victim was hanging out with four other friends on Estoria Street around 11 p.m. when three young men, brandishing guns, forced everyone inside the residence. After collecting their cell phones and ransacking the home for other valuables, the burglars — noting that one of the victims was well-dressed — drove him to several nearby cash machines, according to the Atlanta police incident report.

Surveillance footage captured at a Bank of America ATM showed one of the youthful suspects hovering over the captive as he withdrew money.

Atlanta Police Detective Paul Guerruci told Channel 2 that the footage is "extremely valuable to our investigation because it actually depicts the individual who committed this horrible, violent act."

The unidentified victim told police that one of the kidnappers suggested they kill him after he was unable to withdraw any more cash. Another advised against it and the thieves opted instead to throw him out of the car near Memorial and Columbia drives.
The kidnapping was just the latest in a series of brazen crimes that have unnerved the Cabbagetown community.

"It's a frustrating time to be in town," Sam Gris, public safety chairman for the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the day after the kidnapping.

 A newscast describing this event can be viewed here.

Gentrification might be changing the face of Atlanta, just as Black migration to the metro Atlanta is changing the face of formerly white suburbs. But one face isn't changing, and that's the near monolithic face of crime.

It's Black as its always been in Atlanta.

Back in 2007, Yahoo! News published an article asking if Atlanta's gentrification was causing a new crime wave. The answer is a resounding no; it's just Black people committing the crime that white people won't, but now, white people live closer to it instead of watching it from the safety of their suburban home.

So, something must be done to stop it:

Many of Atlanta's historic areas look a bit different than they did about 5-10 years ago. In keeping with numerous other cities in the United States, some of Atlanta's poorest neighborhoods are being completely overhauled into upscale communities. These "new" areas boast trendy boutiques, popular franchises like Starbuck's and Target and other pricey amenities. But there has long been controversy over the effect that gentrification has on these urban communities. City officials and lawmakers claim that cleaning up certain areas of Atlanta will help to reduce the amount of crime. In many cases, this is certainly true. But the proliferation of upscale businesses and residents in many of Atlanta's popular sections is causing concern that a new wave of crime may become more prevalent.

 John Henderson, who once worked as a bartender at The Standard in Grant Park, was one of those white urban pioneers who was gunned down by Black people. His death in 2009 galvanized the Stuff White People Like (SWPL) whites in the gentrifying areas that once were breeding grounds for the Black Undertow, but his memory is no longer invoked today.  

Metro Atlanta is the Black Hole of America, a region where a Mad-Max mentality exists among a growing percentage of the Black underclass; a siege mentality exists among a growing percentage of the dwindling white population.

Not just in Cabbagetown, but even in Peachtree City.

So white flight is no longer an option; and gentrification isn't a viable option either.

Now... we just might getting to the point of no return for Black-Run America (BRA). 

Video of the Cabbagetown kidnapping is here.

Video of Peachtree City home invasion here. 

Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

CBS Atlanta 46

The Gordian Knot Appears: Untie Atlanta, Untie America

Whites fleeing the Black Undertow... just say it.

The Gordian Knot. The ultimate problem that vexed the ancients was one Alexander of Macedonia solved:

While at Gordion, the Macedonian king learned about a special wagon that was situated in the Temple of Zeus. The pole of the wagon was tied to the wagon body with an intricate knot of cornel bark, and a prophecy had foretold that whoever could unfasten the knot would go on to rule over Asia (or even the whole settled world, in one version). Seized by a longing to test the prophecy, Alexander tried to unfasten the knot by unraveling it, but when he was unable to do so, he drew his sword and cut right through it. From this comes the proverbial expression “to cut the Gordian Knot”, meaning to cut right to the heart of a matter without wasting time on external details.

At the end of this month, metro Atlanta will go to the polls to decide if there will be an increase of taxation so that the burden of commuting around the city can be lessened:

On July 31, 2012, residents across the 10-county Atlanta region including Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties, as well as the City of Atlanta have the opportunity to vote on a referendum that would fund $8.5 billion in transportation improvements through a regional one percent sales tax.

It has already been established here that Atlanta has the worst traffic in America. The longest commutes. A public transportation system that does little more than serve as a jobs program for Black people and move Move Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta (MARTA ridership is 78 percent Black).

For those who support the transportation referendum, an Web site has been set up with the historically interesting title of Untie Atlanta. The site (UntieAtlanta.com) states:

The Crisis

Traffic is choking metro Atlanta. Billions of dollars are wasted in traffic congestion each year, costing the average metro commuter $924 annually in wasted fuel and lost time. Businesses are discouraged from moving to our region and creating jobs because of the added costs and hassles of traffic congestion. And home values suffer as homebuyers avoid clogged communities.

The Solution


A yes vote on July 31 will help to untie our traffic knot and make our region more competitive again. Investments in regional transportation will help create and support 200,000 mid- to high-paying jobs -- and will free up our clogged roadways so we can be more productive at work and spend more time at home. Investing in our region will bring jobs, prosperity and an improved quality of life for decades to come.

Who can be against the creation of jobs, right? Well, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published an article (Public ‘in the dark’ on T-SPLOST $1B:Share of transportation funds for localities does not require project list, June 17, 2012) which illustrates the project has virtually no accountability nor transparency:

The battle over how the region would spend $6.14 billion to fix metro Atlanta’s transportation quagmire is in full roar.


Little noticed in the din: $1.08 billion in tax revenue that would go directly to local government, part of the $7.2 billion expected from the proposed 1 percent sales tax.


Each of the region’s counties, cities and towns would get a share of the $1 billion to spend on transportation. But unlike the regional $6 billion fund, there is no requirement to list a single project for the $1 billion local fund. In many cases, voters at the polls July 31 will have no way of knowing where the projects are that the local money would build.

Look, no project in the Black Mecca has ever had accountability (save former Mayor Bill Campbell's mad dash to keep Affirmative Action in The City too Busy to Hate, lest Black people no longer have access to public jobs). The entire reason Atlanta has crushing traffic problems is completely, 100 percent due to white people's attempts to create cities and communities free of the Black influence that makes Atlanta one of the most violent in all of America.

That we live in Black-Run America (BRA) where no white person can speak honestly about race without fear of social ostracism and career suicide shows the totalitarian nature of the current political system.

Traffic isn't suffocating Atlanta; our inability to openly talk about race and the harmful effects of the Black Undertow Phenomenon (consult the history of Clayton and DeKalb County, as well as Stone Mountain) are suffocating Atlanta.

The city of Atlanta is where other municipalities mirrored their affirmative action policies from; because of government contracting rules that mandated work with the city, county (Fulton), and the Hartsfield International Airport, the city attracted Black people from around the nation to work in an artificially created middle class.

And because Black people are responsible for virtually all the crime in the metro Atlanta area, white people must continually seek safe cities (read: free of the Black Undertow) to raise children in.

Though whites are moving back into a city they long ago abandoned (Gentrification Changing Face of New Atlanta, By SHAILA DEWAN, March 11, 2006), the entire metro Atlanta is plagued by high foreclosure rates and property devaluations directly correlated to the influx of Black people.

From The Spatial Mismatch Between Jobs and Residential Locations Within Urban Areas (an illustration of the Black Undertow Effect in action in Metro Atlanta)

The Metro Atlanta area has some of the greatest disparities of wealth in America (primarily because Black wealth is created via a monopoly on public jobs in predominately Black counties and the City of Atlanta); also because of the law of the Visible Black Hand of Economics, which states that any area that is majority Black will not be capable of sustaining any semblance of a vibrant, diversified economy.

In the Travel Patterns of People of Color (prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, June 30, 2000) we learn of the spatial mismatch hypothesis, which "suggests that employment rates and poverty rates are higher for inner city blacks in large part because they are isolated from employment opportunities located in the mainly suburban and exurban metropolitan regions areas that ring central cities."

Forever blame whitey for the plight of Black people, who lack the ability to sustain a business or create new industries (just look at the sorrowful nature of Sweet Auburn, historically the pride of the Black community in Atlanta).

Funny, the counties that go majority Black (Clayton, DeKalb) quickly prove the spatial mismatch hypothesis wrong, because once-thriving business districts dry up as the tax-base evaporates. In The Spatial Mismatch Between Jobs and Residential Locations Within Urban Areas by Keith Ihlanfeldt of Georgia State University, we learn this:

Within central cities, white flight from neighborhoods undergoing racial transition has been an important historical phenomenon. These results may not carry over into a suburban setting, however, since the cost of moving—in terms of additional travel time—from the city to the suburbs may be quite different from the cost of moving from one suburban location to a more distant suburban location. At some point, the desire for access to the central city may work to impede the mobility of white households.

Some evidence on suburban black infiltration/white flight in Atlanta during the 1980s is provided in Table 4. DeKalb, Clayton, and South Fulton Counties are inner-suburban areas that experienced considerable black in-migration during the 1980s. Each county has been divided into the superdistricts defined by ARC for planning purposes. The black population increased in all but one of the 14 superdistricts, and in 11 of these 13 cases the decline in the white population was substantial.

As has previously been stated here, Black people - and white people escaping from living near Black people - represent the greatest ecological threat to the United States. Some call it suburban sprawl; we simply call it Escape from Black people (though you might hear neighbors, family members, or pundits call it "searching for good schools"). The Sierra Club published a report in 1998 where they labeled Atlanta as the worst city for "sprawl" (read: white people escaping from Black crime and property devaluations):

1998 Sierra Club Sprawl Report: 30 Most Sprawl-Threatened Cities
Ten Most Sprawl-Threatened Large Cities
Number One: Atlanta

Every week, five hundred acres of green space, forest, and farmland in the Atlanta metro area are plowed under.

Every week, five hundred acres of green space, forest and farmland in the Atlanta metro area are plowed under.

Atlanta is one of the fastest growing regions in the country, and the environmental impacts of unplanned sprawl in the Atlanta area are among the most significant and widespread in the nation.

Atlanta's urban land area expanded 47 percent between 1990 to 1996, following a 25 percent expansion between 1980 and 1990. Pressure to expand will continue as the population grows disproportionately in the outer suburbs. From 1990 to 1996, the population outside Atlanta's urban core increased almost 40 percent, but only 2 percent inside the city limits. Some experts believe that the region's population could double in the next 50 years. With no natural barriers, few cities are growing as fast as Atlanta.

Green space is being gobbled up by sprawl faster than in any metro region in history (according to a real estate research firm and reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution). Every week, five hundred acres of green space, forest or farmland are plowed under to build parking lots, shopping malls and housing subdivisions. Between 1982 and 1992, the amount of open space lost to development in the Atlanta metropolitan area increased by 38 percent. The rate of land developed nearly doubled in outer suburban counties such as Gwinnett, Henry and Paulding.

The Chattahoochee River was named one of the nation's most endangered rivers in 1998 by the environmental group, American Rivers, which identified rampant growth in the suburbs as the most significant threat to the river. The Chattahoochee is seriously degraded from overflowing sewage systems, city street runoff and other pollutants.

Air quality is also alarmingly poor. The 13-county region is in violation of clean air standards and has lost the right to spend federal money on new road projects. Children with asthma go to the hospital every summer because of high levels of ozone pollution. Cars and trucks are the largest source of air pollution in the nonattainment area. Yet, state, regional and local agencies cannot agree on a plan to clean up the region's air.

 But there is no escape. The entire metro Atlanta represents a giant Black Hole, and the vote on July 31 will only perpetuate this into the future with funding to the tune of billions of dollars.

All of this will allow whites to continue to flee the problems that so few people dare confront publicly, namely that Black political stranglehold over both MARTA, Fulton County, and the City of Atlanta (increasingly DeKalb, Rockdale, and Clayton County) has created an ecological nightmare around The City too Busy to Hate.

All of the could end, if someone would just dare cut the Gordian Knot in Atlanta. With this act, BRA ends.

"Untie Atlanta"... it's a catchy marketing term used by those who favor perpetuating an insane transportation system that does nothing but enslave metro Atlanta citizens to the cycle of forever vacating a thriving city once too many Black people move there, overwhelming the judicial system and breaking the back of the local economy due to business closures.

Back in 1996, The New York Times wrote that "Atlanta is Burning"; meaning, it's future is uncertain because of the instability of 'The Atlanta Way'.

America's Gordian Knot is Atlanta, home to corporations that have slavishly prostrated themselves before BRA (looking at you Coca-Cola) and the origins of sinister "equality" programs and affirmative actions mandates in contracting and public employment that have polluted cities across the nation, creating barriers to employment for more qualified white males.

Traffic isn't suffocating Atlanta; our inability to be honest about race is suffocating not just Atlanta, but America.

The Gordian Knot is ready to be cut.