Bill Huey, Atlanta (8/18):
An amusing, retrograde RFP. Must place AT LEAST 8-10 articles per month.
Overdevelopment and unemployment are Atlanta’s besetting problems. Georgia leads the nation in foreclosures and bank failures, caused principally by dumb banks lending to overleveraged real estate developers. The office vacancy rate is 25 percent (that’s the Class-A space), and the unemployment rate is 10.5 percent.
Just yesterday, a youngish woman had a gun stuck in her face and her SUV jacked while she was unloading groceries in front of her stylish new apartment in the Fourth Ward, one of Atlanta’s intown re-development “success” stories. That sort of thing happens nearly every day.
But a PR firm is supposed to re-shape this? If the mayor (who heads ADA) wants to influence opinion and keep his job, he had better turn his attention from international affairs, dodgy transit schemes and nebulous economic development to dealing with crime in the streets, which happens to be running absolutely wild at the moment. |