The Atlanta Way - 2011

The Atlanta Way is a documentary film chronicling the last years of public housing in Atlanta, Georgia from 2008-2010. It deals with the current gentrification of Atlanta, specifically, the razing of nearly every public housing project in Atlanta, and the destiny of the former residents of those projects. Set during the last days of public housing in Atlanta and the global financial crash of 2008, the film showcases the tensions regarding the last phase of demolition of all of the public housing in Atlanta. The resulting effort of a nearly 20-year project of theAtlanta Housing Authority based in part to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta and the resulting gentrification from both sides of the gentrification issue: those being gentrified and those who are gentrifying.

There’s a right way, there’s a wrong way and then there’s The Atlanta Way.

Derived from the phrase ‘the Atlanta way of doing things’, dating as far back to the 1906 Atlanta Race Riots, riots that last for 4 days and left dozens dead. This ‘Atlanta way of doing things’ became the unofficial method of joining between black and white elites. Preferring to deter open opposition and controversy, while maintaining an established order for sake of progressing business.

In Atlanta, money is power and power makes decisions.

In Atlanta, where most would agree that money is power and power makes decisions, from 1994 until 2010, the city has seen thousands of its African-American residents seemingly disappear during this period. The demographics of the city changed at a faster pace than any other city in the nation. Nevertheless, the city’s budget surplus turned into a serious deficit in just eight years.

Mired in an era of economic uncertainty and political unrest, Atlanta finds itself in a discord that many cities can relate to; to maintain or rebuild the city, what would it cost?

The Atlanta Way is an in-depth analysis of how Atlanta’s relationship with gentrification has been a byproduct of decades of clandestine backroom dealings, oblique public relations campaigns & the treatment of its growing underclass.

Focusing on investment and profit over outright defiant opposition, Atlanta positioned itself to be an outlier amongst other southern cities. This would be no more evident in its development of public housing, airport, highways, suburbs and the centennial Olympic games.

Atlanta is the first city in the US to open its doors to public housing and the first to successfully close all of its public housing as well. The Atlanta Housing Authority, utilizing a series of revolutionary as well as controversial programs aimed at curbing an even more controversial system of public housing projects.

Fueled by the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the city of Atlanta would embark on a nearly 20 year process of removing public housing that would not only radically change the landscape of the city itself but of the entire US. The Atlanta Way is the examination of how the last 100 years of unadulterated capitalistic philosophy can leave a city morally & financially bankrupt.