sagaciously is...

I've been driving through my metro Atlanta neighborhoods, watching things change. It's fairly obvious to anyone who has heard/visited Atlanta how rapidly it's grown and changed.

And yet, some things never change.

The picture above is of the Centennial Place Apartments in downtown Atlanta. It's also a picture of Techwood Drive, the former main thoroughfare through Techwood Homes. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Techwood homes, think Cabrini Greens sans high rise. It's reputation was legendary, and infamous. Warranted or not, Techwood was a jungle that you wouldn't voluntarily venture through without a tour guide, and a shotgun. Drugs & crime were the rule, not the exception, and strangers were liable to get caught up.

Oh yes, I am referring to that picture above. Funny how things change, yes? Now, Techwood Drive is called Centennial Olympic Park Drive, not only because it borders Centennial olympic Park, but also because that name now garners $M in real estate dollars, instead of DFACS checks or drug cash.

But the homeless still (sorta) live there:

And that's typical of the two (maybe more?) Atlantas in which I live, work, breathe. The Atlanta that is (was), and the Atlanta that Atlanta aspires to be.

The Atlanta that Atlanta aspires to be is a neo-Urban mecca, where you can sleep, eat, shyt and play without leaving a 50 yard radius of your living room - well, if you can pay to play. And that price is very high. If Atlanta (as an entity) were free to carve out a new identity, it would be a Gen Y, classist, pseudo-multicultural melting pot, where everyone can come & live @ Atlantic Station and work @ Midtown, and shop @ Ikea...or at least that's what some would like you to believe.

But that's not what Atlanta is. Not yet at least. What Atlanta is, like many American metropolitan cities, is a city in gentrification:

This store is about 100 ft from Centennial Place, and it hasn't been moved, yet. For me, this symbolizes what Atlanta was/is for the last 10 years or so. A city at once suffering from urban blight, "issues" of homelessness, impoverished areas as well as isolated clusters of affluence, and institutionalized racism thinly veiled as classism. My Northern friends asked me to describe Atlanta, and the only way I could is to tell them to drive 10 miles along any main thoroughfare here, and you would pass some projects, and some $M homes. Racism here was organic, ingrained in: the social status & structure of the city, the makeup of its neighborhoods, the distribution of wealth, the lack of cultural interaction (and therefore "true" diversity) and despite the brown faces that run the city, ingrained in its politricks as well.

So, is then very far from now? The Atlanta that is very far from the Atlanta it aspires to be? Naw, shawty...not as long as that same racist infrastructure controls the destiny of the city. Not as long as politricks can dictate policies to ban panhandling, and the closing realignment* of homeless shelters. Not as long as the real estate market here drives up the price of properties intown, eliminating affordable intown housing, and forcing current urban dwellers into the suburbs.

*Oh, and by realignment, I mean the closing of several intown shelters, and the opening of one centralized Gateway facility. Yes, it's good that it added 270 beds, but this unintentional conslidation screams cattle round-up to me. Like Goodie said, are they trying to keep the crime out, or to keep our a$$es in?

I can guess what the landscape will look like in 10 years, and despite the annoyances intown living has posed here for the last 10+ years, I am going to miss: local eateries like Gutbusters, Q-Time; hole-in-the-wall clubs like Ellery's & Marco's; cottage-style bungalows; and places where the owner knew your name & face. I'm afraid that I'm going to eventually end up saying goodbye to Soul Vegetarian, and Soul Kiss, and Shoe Gallery or the Shoemaker's Warehouse and that Five Points Flea market will be converted into a loft space. They'll be wiped clean, and replaced by sterile, vanilla shoplets that only offer socially acceptable diversity additives. Which isn't very far from the perspective of Atlanta's most vocal residents. I think I'm just over being a Peach.