Moving toward prosperity with innovation and vigor. Or being stuck in stagnation with little ahead except increasing economic irrelevance and likely decline.
Those are the scenarios facing the Atlanta metro area as the calendar ticks toward the critical year of 2012.
It’s a sobering message, yes, but one suited for these grave times. The toughest part is admitting the severity of the challenges that lie ahead.
Only when that’s done can we in Atlanta do as we’ve done multiple times before — build and work our way forward toward a better future crafted from our own smarts, sweat and labor. That’s called the Atlanta Way. Above all else, we can’t forget that.
What we can and should forget is much of what our past looked like. For the future will most assuredly be different, in ways both now evident and yet to be determined. This metro area and state must keep the best of what worked in bygone days, consign the rest to history and began hammering ahead in innovative ways toward new days and new decades.
Before we can do that, we must know and accept what this region is up against. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began its part in this community process more than two years ago with the “Atlanta Forward” initiative.
In introducing this concept, the Editorial Board wrote that, “It was not by chance that Atlanta — from its central core to the suburbs fanning outward in all directions — rose into the ranks of America’s great cities.
This has long been a get-it-done kind of town — a place where disparate constituencies have, for decades, come together to make great things happen.”
That still holds true, we believe. And the AJC has since expanded the Atlanta Forward mind-set and effort to our investigative reporting. Today we begin an eight-part series examining the largest matters that threaten this region’s future and prosperity.
Our work, and that of our journalistic partners, is being undertaken to help examine the best ways to assure a solid future for us all. The series will address topics and issues that demand our attention, thought, discussion and, most of all, action.
Nearly all of us can name the major challenges facing Atlanta: transportation, education and access to water top the list. We’ll explore the cumulative effect they play in weighing down our journey toward better days.
Success in a competitive world will come to the cities that can accurately identify and aggressively move to mitigate their shortcomings. That is the best way to ensure that Atlanta remains in the ranks of the world’s great metropolises that prosper as magnets for smart people seeking opportunities to invest, work and thrive.
Those cities that don’t act decisively will see prosperity and dynamism begin to slip from their grasp.
History proves this theory. In the 1860 U.S. census, the city of Atlanta ranked 99th among urban areas, with just 9,554 residents. We were sandwiched then between Schenectady, N.Y., and Wilmington, N.C.
How far we’ve come in the ensuing 150 years. Our hard-earned place today as a megacity of nearly 6 million people should be celebrated. But we must know that the future is not guaranteed. We can best assure our place, and our progress, by coalescing more as a true community of shared interests.
And we must get to work as we’ve never labored before. It won’t be easy, but we can get it done. Fixing the big problems will require work from the grass-roots to the highest executive suites. All of us have a stake in solutions, and a role to play.
That can’t effectively happen until we each understand in similar ways what lies ahead.
Only then we can act.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board
Atlanta Forward: We look at major issues Atlanta must address in order to move forward as the economy recovers.
Look for the designation “Atlanta Forward,” which will identify these discussions.
