Chapter 2 ~ Atlanta's Development From Terminus to Marthasville to Atlanta, the mere railroad juncture that would never become anything more than a tavern, blacksmith, and general store, has pushed a long way with its future-oriented mindset to become the hustling and bustling city that it is today. Atlanta is far from a "model" city except in a Post Urbanist, ad hoc "generic city" development, but that ad hoc development is what makes Atlanta unique. Developing along the railroad and existing Indian trails and wagon roads, there is not a regular development of Atlanta, and the formal grid that was overlayed onto the existing development has only helped complicate the confusion that is Atlanta. Atlanta has always been a future-oriented city that focused on the development of industry, commerce, and business. The "turbulent past" is generally overlooked and disregarded with the exception of being a challenge that was overcome. A lot of this has arisen from the cities "lack" of preserved history that has roots in the destruction that occurred during the Civil War. With the lack of the past to hang onto, Atlanta has become fond of bulldozer and wrecking-ball eliminating the old unneeded or wanted buildings and replacing them with spurious, second-rate, knock-offs of a false past. During the mid-1800's, Atlanta had a major population boom, increasing from 500 to 6,000 people and bringing with them newspapers, churches, and associations for civic betterment. As can be seen by what Atlanta is today, the association of civic betterment was unable to create a strong hold in Atlanta seeing how there are very few public open spaces or central civic activities. The ideals of Atlanta were not focused on that of civic development but instead an economic development. With this focus, Atlanta became a regional center for finance, insurance, wholesaling, and conventions, as well as for the location for US Government agencies like the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Appeals Court, and a large federal penitentiary. With the strategic location and the growth that has occurred in Atlanta, it has been dubbed "the Gate City of the South," and this Gate City is constantly expanding. Five Points 1925 While a central business district formed around the Federal Reserve and Federal Appeals Court, Five Points emerged as a business district just north of the railroad tracks. Due to the lack of public open space in Atlanta the intersection of the five important streets - Whitehall, Peachtree, Marietta, Edgewood, and Decatur - that is Five Points was a principal gathering place and thus attracted business. At the same time it must be noted that these districts that formed were for the white population, the black population had their own business center that formed along Auburn Avenue. Peachtree Street from Five Points 1911 Thanks a lot to "Gone with the Wind," Peachtree Street became a major thoroughfare and place of development as flocks of tourists came to Atlanta looking for Tara. With this major development has occurred along Peachtree Street and many other streets have wanted to have some reference to the well known Peachtree Street. Peachtree Street early 1900's With an extensive network of streetcars and the use of automobiles, the expansion of the suburbs around Atlanta began to grow. Quoting W.E.B. DuBois: "The Atlanta rich have wrung city taxes out of poor blacks and poor whites and then squandered wealth to lay mile upon mile of beautiful boulevard through silent and empty forests with mile upon mile of nine inch water mains and sewers of the latest design, while here and there rise grudgingly the spreading castles of the Suddenly Rich; but in the city's heart . . . the children sicken and die because there is no city water, 5,000 black children sit in the streets, for there are no seats in the schools." Increased Sprawl around Atlanta As the rich whites moved out into the suburbs, weather it is because of white flight from the blacks or flight from the poor working class, the sprawl and the decentralization of the city continued along with the degradation of the center core of the city. Time went on and Atlanta continued to sprawl. In the late 1960's Portman along with other architects started creating "little outposts of suburbia downtown" by way of creating inwardly turned buildings that had no relation to the street or surroundings. In retrospect some of these buildings are now being renovated so that they open to the street. Along with the renovations going on, Atlanta has begun to realize the necessity of revitalizing the city and this has created a stream of urban redevelopments forming in the downtown areas of Atlanta and also along the MARTA mass transit system.

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