Economist.com Cities Guide: Atlanta Briefing - March 2006

News this month

All in the family

In 1984 a federal judge broke AT&T’s monopoly on the phone industry, and the company duly split into regional phone carriers dubbed “Baby Bells”. Now AT&T, which last year merged with SBC Communications, is planning a reunion. In a surprise announcement on March 5th, AT&T said that it would acquire Atlanta-based BellSouth, one of the “Baby Bells”, for $67 billion. AT&T and BellSouth jointly own Cingular Wireless, a mobile-phone service, and the merger will bring all three companies under one owner. The resulting telecoms company will be America’s largest, with a market capitalisation of $170 billion, more than 250,000 employees and 70m local phone subscribers. The move is seen as a response to a market that has become increasingly competitive as customers begin to get phone service via the internet.

The deal has locals worried. Though AT&T insists that the company will maintain a strong presence in Atlanta, some 10,000 jobs in the area could be cut. Moreover, BellSouth has a strong reputation as a local corporate philanthropist, which few expect the new company to sustain. BellSouth is the third major Atlanta-based company in less than six months to be acquired by a firm headquartered outside the city. In November Koch Industries, based in Kansas, acquired Georgia-Pacific, a paper-goods company; and Cisco Systems, based in California, bought Scientific-Atlanta, a maker of broadband cable equipment.

Crossing lines

While federal politicians debate immigration laws, Georgia's state legislators are weighing their own reforms. Chip Rogers, a Republican senator from Woodstock, north-west of Atlanta, has proposed a sweeping immigration bill, the first to be debated on the floor of Georgia's state legislature. Mr Rogers’s proposal would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants and require employers to document an employee’s citizenship before they could claim the salary on their state income tax.

Several groups, including the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), are opposing the bill on the grounds that immigration reform is a federal prerogative. But pundits expect Mr Rogers’s bill to be backed by the Republican-controlled legislature in an election year. A recent poll found that 82% of Georgians want their politicians to address immigration problems.

The wheels come off

After a year of intense lobbying, Atlanta learned on March 6th that it had lost its bid to host NASCAR's first Hall of Fame, a new building to celebrate car racing. Charlotte, North Carolina, was chosen for the hall instead, largely because 90% of NASCAR teams, and therefore many top drivers, are not far from the city. This is despite Atlanta's last-ditch effort to promote its bid with a promise to support the hall with city bonds and grant a tax break that would have cut construction costs by $5.2m.

City leaders had hoped that a $102m NASCAR Hall of Fame would be a boon to tourism and development downtown, building on the success of the new Georgia Aquarium. Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group that had championed the bid, has not yet revealed its plans for the earmarked site.

The end of an era

Flanked by hundreds of cheering Delta Air Lines employees, the “Spirit of Delta”, a Boeing 767 jet, made its final landing on March 3rd at Atlanta’s airport, where Delta is based. The plane is famous for being purchased in 1982 with $30m of voluntary contributions from employees. Three flight attendants (or “stewardesses”, as they were then known) launched the drive after Delta was criticised for giving its employees a raise when it had just posted its first annual loss in 36 years.

The celebrants at Atlanta’s airport were quick to say that Delta, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last September, would be hard-pressed to inspire such a gesture from its workers now. The Air Line Pilots Association, Delta’s pilots union, agreed to 32% pay cuts in 2004 to help the airline stave off bankruptcy, and is resisting management's effort to make more cuts of $325m. The dispute went to arbitration on March 13th, a first for a labour contract in a bankruptcy-protected company. A plan to pay departing Delta executives up to $14m has done little to ease animosity. The “Spirit of Delta”, a reminder of happier days, will spend its retirement in the company museum.

Slow ride

A group of Georgia State University students has won national attention thanks to a five-minute film, “55: A Meditation on the Speed Limit”. The students filmed each other driving the legal speed limit, 55mph, on Atlanta’s Interstate 285, where traffic frequently averages 70mph. The resulting road rage and wall of traffic earned the film not only a student-film festival’s “Best Comedy” award, but also wider attention thanks to its availability on the internet. The filmmakers even appeared on National Public Radio and some television talk shows.

Although some irate commuters have suggested jailing the speed-limit abiders, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation says the students did not block emergency vehicles and therefore did nothing wrong.

Catch if you can

March 2006

“Jelly’s Last Jam”

March 15th-April 9th 2006

This musical tells the life story of Jelly Roll Morton, the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz. It won three Tony Awards in 1992 on the strength of George C. Wolfe’s book (he also directed the first run) and Morton’s tunes. The musical has never before travelled to Atlanta. It now appears with Kent Gash, the Alliance Theatre’s associate artistic director, serving as director and co-choreographer.

Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. Tel: +1 (404) 733-5000. Tickets: $25–45. For more information, see the theatre’s website.

More from the Atlanta cultural calendar