Fresh Loaf

The demolition of Atlanta's Bowen Homes earlier this month

Atlanta is often, and rightly, seen as being well behind the curve when it comes to anything resembling progress. Trends — be they related to culture, social issues, business or, god knows, politics — typically take a couple of years to filter through here after they’ve already become old news in New York, L.A., London, Seattle or wherever.

In other words, it’s rare to see Atlanta taking a leading role on the national stage. But that’s exactly what’s been going on the past few years as Dr. Renee Glover, director of the Atlanta Housing Authority, has pursued an ambitious plan to make us the first large American to completely do away with public housing projects in favor of rent subsidies for privately owned, mixed-income properties.

Yesterday, the New York Times had a prominent news story that details how Atlanta has set the pace for the rest of the country when it comes to this important aspect of public policy. Quoth the Gray Lady:

Mixed-income developments oriented toward families, with trendy shops, golf courses and Y.M.C.A.’s, are emerging where bleak, uniform towers once stood. Displaced residents are receiving vouchers to move to private housing. And a landmark experiment in housing the urban poor in large government-run facilities that began under the New Deal is being undone.

And, a little later:

“Atlanta’s plan signifies in a very clear way that the social contract that cities and citizens have with the poor has fundamentally changed,” said Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociologist at Columbia University who studies urban neighborhoods. “We’ve decided that the market can function to create housing and the role of government should be to move people into the market.”

Now, as with any type of progress, the demolition of public housing has its critics. Certainly, the jury is out on whether the voucher program will eventually be regarded as an overwhelming success, as CL’s Mara Shalhoup has previously reported. In fact, the NYT cites Mara’s reporting in noting that “a large majority of displaced residents settle in 10 of Atlanta’s poorest ZIP codes.”

(more…)

Bookmark It

Words can hurt.

Any writer knows that words can explain and educate, but they can also inflame and belittle. That’s why we carefully choose the words we use. An ill-chosen word can stop a reader in his tracks, distracting him from the point of a story.

The day my most recent cover story was published — concerning crime on Boulevard and a proposed redevelopment of the street — I left for vacation, little knowing I’d set my editor up for a hailstorm of controversy (at least within our office).

Even when I got back yesterday, I didn’t suspect any problems. The story had received a healthy number of lengthy comments online and another half-dozen e-mails, nearly all of them positive and none mentioning any concern over word choice. But then, those people likely read the story online, where the title of the article was, “Down on Boulevard: Positive change might finally come to Atlanta’s lawless street.”

On the cover of the print edition, however, we went with a different title. This is typical; we have limited space on the cover and are forced to get the point across in fewer words. Underneath a photo of a street sign for Boulevard, the title on the print edition read:

Midtown’s lawless ghetto readies for a revival

I had chosen these words carefully. Headline-writing is a balancing act; you want to grab people’s attention, but you should be accurate. The more I’d learned about Boulevard during my reporting, the more the area seemed to fit the definition of a ghetto, which Webster describes as “a portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure.”

(more…)

Bookmark It