Summerhill

Atlanta Neighborhoods Revitalized (9 OCT 00)

Nov 28, 2006

Atlanta Neighborhoods Revitalized by Arrival of 1996 Olympic Games.

Byline: Melissa Turner

Oct. 9--Summerhill was no Sydney Harbor. Vine City was no Bondi Beach. And Peoplestown couldn't hold a candle to Homebush Bay, even though the Sydney suburb was a contaminated dump before Olympics organizers built Stadium Australia in the middle of it.

Atlanta boosters were quick to spot the image problem that came with the award of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. Not only did the central city lack breathtaking scenery and stunning architecture upon which to focus the world's cameras, the Olympic team had decided to plop the centerpiece venue for the 1996 Summer Games in the heart of a slum.

Summerhill and the communities surrounding the so-called Olympic Ring were drug-infested ruins, populated mostly by vagrants, boarded-up shacks and weedy vacant lots that served as leave-at-your-own-risk parking for Braves baseball games.

It wasn't the sort of backdrop organizers wanted when NBC's cameras pulled back for a panoramic view of the Olympic stadium. Inner-neighborhood revitalization in Atlanta suddenly had a new impetus. The goal was a telegenic sprucing up that would lead to more profound long-term changes.

Today, four years later, the picture is indeed different.

Throughout the five Ring neighborhoods --- Summerhill, Peoplestown, Mechanicsville, Vine City/Auburn Avenue and the Old Fourth Ward --- hundreds of new homes have been built and older ones rehabilitated. Drug-infested apartments have been demolished, and new townhouse complexes have gone up in their place.

Most significantly, most of the neighborhoods have long-range redevelopment plans approved by the city which, residents hope, will assist them in realizing their goals.

"The greatest legacy of all is the neighborhood residents have begun to believe in their neighborhoods again," observes Clara Axam, the president of the Corporation for Olympic Development in Atlanta, or CODA, the agency created by then-Mayor Maynard Jackson to rebuild...

Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)
Publication Date: 09-OCT-00