Atlanta Games Left Lasting Legacy

[richard]

Before the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta was calling itself the world's next great international city. Not everyone else was.

"In surveys that were done prior to the Games,” notes Georgia State professor Harvey Newman, “many people around the world would respond, 'Oh, we love Atlanta...we particularly enjoy your casinos.'"

After the games, most people knew the difference between Atlanta and Atlantic City.

"The television impact of a global audience was, of course, very, very important to making people around the world aware of Atlanta," Dr. Newman said.

But the Olympics also added bricks and mortar and dollars and cents.

Centennial Olympic Park was supposed to be a gathering place for Atlanta's Olympic visitors.

Ten years later it is still a gathering place and more.

“The kind of development, the mix of development, the housing that's occurred around there as well as the cultural facilities and entertainment facilities is spectacular," said Tom Wyatt of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Many of the Olympic sports venues remain -- the Lake Lanier rowing venue, the Stone Mountain tennis center, the Conyers horse park, and, of course, the Olympic stadium which became Turner Field.

And not only did the Centennial Olympic Games leave a physical legacy -- buildings, sports facilities, Centennial Olympic Park, but also it left an economic and development legacy: commerce, investment, and transportation.

The transportation management system completed in time for the games was one of the most advanced such systems in the country. And there were less visible projects: street and sidewalk improvements.

"Not only have they remained,” the A.R.C’s Wyatt told 11Alive’s Marc Pickard, “but they've spread and the downtown and midtown have become much more pedestrian kind of environments because of that."

But beyond all else, Atlanta's enduring legacy is that it is an Olympic city.

"(I) was riding with a group of international tourists,” professor Newman recalls, “and as the MARTA train approached downtown they saw the Olympic torch and everyone in their language was pointing to the Olympic torch."

Casinos indeed.


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Web Editor: Marc Pickard
11alive.com

Image: Centennial Olympic Park and Turner Field