I read with great interest Kevin Riley’s opinion piece “Do We Still Have Olympic Will?”
It raises an interesting question, but perhaps not a fair one without some kind of context. The Olympic Games were and are a once-in-a-lifetime experience for any city. The run-up to the 1996 Summer Games, as well as the games themselves, were exciting and inspirational for all of us who had never lived through such a spectacle. It was a time when the world spotlight was on our city, state and country, and everyone rallied to make sure we delivered as best we could.
In Riley’s piece, A.D. Frazier (leadership), Andrew Young (attitude), and A.W. “Bill” Dahlberg (focus) point out the perceived simple recipe of how any community gets things done. However to be fair, a good crisis (Olympic Games) is a lot easier to rally around than a bad crisis (water, traffic, education). We also live in an era where fragmentation (political, geographic, communication) makes any subject a lot tougher to understand, build consensus around and solve.
But I would submit that the Olympic Games did leave the legacy that we have the ability to do anything our community puts its mind to; the challenge becomes defining the task and the community.
For example, the No. 1 asset in Georgia (in survey after survey of Georgians) is the Atlanta airport, and yet does Atlanta (and I mean its residents and government) receive any kudos for the will and foresight to build the new international terminal? One could argue that it will make a bigger impact on future generations of Atlantans than the Olympics ever did because of the increasing global economy.
What about the community will that’s been harnessed to create the National Center for Civil and Human Rights? The center is just months away from groundbreaking and will celebrate our unique history and perhaps help us capture our own future in a way that we have never done before.
And what about the Georgia Aquarium, the Cobb Energy Center, the Regional Commission on Homelessness, the Atlanta Dream, the Atlanta Beltline, the redo of Grady Memorial Hospital, steps to solve the city’s pension and water issues, the Atlanta streetcar project and the growth of Georgia State University? All are examples of important accomplishments achieved since the 1996 games.
Next summer, the Transportation Investment Act vote will provide a significant opportunity for us to show whether we have the will to raise almost $7 billion for our regional transportation infrastructure.
These are legacies of Olympic willpower. Yes, we can do more and, yes, there is always something to fix and finding the “will” is time-consuming and, frankly, exhausting.
Perhaps our greatest opportunity is to harness the talent, intellect and resources in the region to work with the rest of Georgia to ensure the entire state has a bright future. Now that would be an Olympic effort worth pursuing. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
A.J. Robinson is president of Central Atlanta Progress Inc. and chairman of the Georgia Forward board of directors.
About the Author
