Economist.com Cities Guide: Atlanta Briefing - December 2005

News this month

A conglomerate grows

A recent buy-out of an Atlanta company was a plush deal for all involved. Koch Industries, a Kansas-based conglomerate, announced in mid-November that it would acquire Georgia-Pacific, a paper- and building-products manufacturer. The acquisition, which will cost Koch $13.2 billion and comes with $7.8 billion in debt, will make Koch the largest privately owned firm in America.

Koch’s president hailed the acquisition as a “platform for future growth”, and Georgia-Pacific’s boss, A.D. “Pete” Correll, seemed just as pleased: Mr Correll will join Koch’s board; Georgia-Pacific’s headquarters will remain in Atlanta; and the public company will become private, and so no longer be subject to Sarbanes-Oxley accounting regulations once it completes the deal. But perhaps the biggest winners are Georgia-Pacific’s shareholders—Koch is giving them a generous 39% premium for their shares.

Doleful in Doraville

General Motors’ decision to downsize is bad news for Atlanta: the flailing car company announced on November 21st that its 30,000 job cuts would include all 2,900 jobs at the General Motors (GM) plant in Doraville, a suburb north-east of Atlanta with a population of only 9,800. The plant, which has been in operation since 1947, will shut down sometime in 2008. “General Motors is Doraville, and Doraville is General Motors,” lamented Ray Jenkins, Doraville's mayor.

But Doraville has evolved and—contrary to Mr Jenkins's assertion—in recent years has been better known for its burgeoning immigrant population than for GM. The suburb could recover quickly: developers are already discussing the possibility of converting the plant to a mixed-use site, similar to Atlanta’s Atlantic Station, which combines housing, jobs and shops. Meanwhile, politicians are trying to stop other car companies from following GM’s lead. State officials are said to be offering Ford tax breaks, road improvements and grants to keep the company from closing its plant in Hapeville, south of Atlanta.

Conventional wisdom

Atlanta is worried about its convention industry—and with good reason: the city, which has the country’s fourth-largest convention centre, must lure conventions from cities with thriving tourism industries, such as Las Vegas and Orlando. New Orleans is another formidable rival: the city already has half a dozen conventions lined up for 2006, even though its convention centre, which housed refugees during Hurricane Katrina, won't be available until April at the earliest.

Atlanta hoped to boost its convention centre at the annual conference of the International Association of Exhibition Management (IAEM), held at the Georgia World Congress Centre at the end of November. To woo the 2,400 attendees, many of whom were convention and trade-show managers, the city organised tours of its new attractions, including Atlantic Station, the Georgia Aquarium, the Imagine It children's museum and the East Lake Golf Club.

An unwanted first

Georgia won the unhappy distinction of being the state with the most Army National Guard soldiers killed in Iraq, after Specialist Philip Allan Dodson junior died in a vehicle accident near Nasiriyah on December 2nd. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which used information from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent website, Georgia has lost 27 Guard members in Iraq, 25 of them from the 48th Brigade Combat team, which includes 2,500 Georgians and is scattered among nine different sites in Iraq. The 48th Brigade is the largest deployment of Georgia’s guard since the second world war. State Republican congressmen, two of whom visited Iraq over Thanksgiving break, say they have not seen a drop-off in support for the war. Louisiana has the second-highest death count, with 23 lost.

The King's new court

2006 will be a transition year for King and Spalding, the city’s best-known law firm. On December 4th, the firm’s partners chose Robert Hays junior, the firm’s lead trial counsel, to become chairman when Walter Driver junior leaves the post in January. The 47-year-old Mr Hays, who has defended several corporate clients in product-liability cases, promised a “firm environment that’s open, stimulating, efficient and appropriately youthful.”

February will see King and Spalding move from its longtime home downtown to a posh spot in midtown, opposite the site of the proposed symphony hall designed by Santiago Calatrava. But the new office will be smaller than the last one and, for the first time, more of the firm’s 830 lawyers will be based outside of Atlanta than within it, scattered across offices in New York, Washington, Houston and London. Nevertheless, King and Spalding, which counts Coca-Cola, Home Depot and UPS among its clients, is likely to remain at the centre of Atlanta's business activity.

Catch if you can

December 2005

Christmas in Athens

Until December 24th 2005

For those who want to indulge in a slightly sentimental, street-lights-and-carollers holiday celebration, head to Athens, a charming university town an hour east of Atlanta. Events include a Parade of Lights (and floats) down Broad Street on December 1st; performances by the Athens School of Ballet; an open house at the Chappelle Gallery, with works by 65 different artists; concerts by the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra; and a holiday gala at the nearby State Botanical Garden of Georgia.

For more information and a complete schedule, see the website.

More from the Atlanta cultural calendar