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Your post just made me think of something related. I recently learned something about the '96 Olympics I didn't know before. I read a story about how Cobb county passed some sort of county ordinance that restricted homosexuals in some way. Maybe it was renting, I can't remember all the details at the moment. But anyway, their was a major backlash and protests for the Olympics to pull out of Cobb county events. Bumper stickers saying "Olympics out of Cobb!" and detouring the flame were the results. The protests grew so large the Olympic Committee did just that. They removed all activities from Cobb. I think that might be the real root of some of the ITP/OTP animosity. I think many hipsters and progressives held onto that view that the surrounding suburbs were the "redneckish" types and they were the sophisticated types in town. Coupled with the anti-minority marches in Forsyth as recently as 1980's, it still lingers as it wasn't that long ago some of this stuff fed the image.
I certainly have no intention of partaking in such behavior.
It was in regard to same sex partnership benefits.
I do remember a close friend of my sister-in-law claiming (somewhat proudly) that going to the city for her was to go to Cumberland Mall and she never went further south than that. When Town Center opened, she said she had no reason to even go to Cumberland. But that's about the only thing I can think of... where someone had an actual fear of going into the CoA.
I have also known several folks who never came inside the Perimeter due to fear of crime. Perimeter mall was as close as they'd get and they viewed that as pretty risky.
I have also known several folks who never came inside the Perimeter due to fear of crime. Perimeter mall was as close as they'd get and they viewed that as pretty risky.
Wow. I can't imagine how much pearl jewelry they ruined from clutching them so hard.
Your post just made me think of something related. I recently learned something about the '96 Olympics I didn't know before. I read a story about how Cobb county passed some sort of county ordinance that restricted homosexuals in some way. Maybe it was renting, I can't remember all the details at the moment. But anyway, their was a major backlash and protests for the Olympics to pull out of Cobb county events. Bumper stickers saying "Olympics out of Cobb!" and detouring the flame were the results. The protests grew so large the Olympic Committee did just that. They removed all activities from Cobb. I think that might be the real root of some of the ITP/OTP animosity. I think many hipsters and progressives held onto that view that the surrounding suburbs were the "redneckish" types and they were the sophisticated types in town. Coupled with the anti-minority marches in Forsyth as recently as 1980's, it still lingers as it wasn't that long ago some of this stuff fed the image.
I certainly have no intention of partaking in such behavior.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saintmarks
It was in regard to same sex partnership benefits.
The Cobb County Board of Commissioners also passed a resolution condemning the homosexual lifestyle in advance of the Olympics in 1993.
The resolution was passed partly out of an irrational fear by some of the more ultraconservative elements in the county that the Olympics would attract a large number of homosexuals to a Cobb County that was then a much more conservative and much more homogenous suburban community than it is today.
The events that led up to the passage of the anti-gay ordinances by the Cobb commission were sparked by the presentation of a play at a theater on the Marietta Square that referenced homosexual characters after receiving public funding from the county by way of the Cobb Arts Council.....Something that did not go over very well in a then-much more conservative suburban county in a much more conservative era during the national conservative political revolution of the mid-1990's.
Cobb County's Anti-Gay Resolution August 1993-1994
In the summer of 1993 in Cobb County, Georgia; unknown to most residents, a seminar was held at the Roswell Street Baptist Church by the newly powerful Christian Coalition about the threat to "Family Values" from "The Gay Agenda". Like other such campaigns, this was probably primarily intended to elect religious and social conservatives to office in the 1994 Georgia primary races. As events played out, the normally low-key Cobb County Commission meetings became a soapbox for competing political agendas, differing religious viewpoints, the Klan, angry speakers on both sides of the issue and extensive media coverage.
It began with the Cobb County Chairman Bill Byrne, questioning the Cobb Arts Council awarding money to Theatre in the Square and the fact that in one of their plays, Lips Together Teeth Apart had some reference to homosexual characters in the play. He felt that the county should not be supporting an organization that did not adhere to the family values that he thought were appropriate. That incident escalated into the Commission taking action under the sponsorship of then-commissioner Gordon Wysong to take a position on the gay community
Cobb Commission put two items on the August 1993 agenda; one was the resolution supporting community standards aka the anti-gay resolution and the other was a vote to remove all funding for the arts. Both votes were primarily symbolic since the resolution was non-binding and the funding for the arts was not a large amount. However, it was, in Byrne's words intended to send a message.
The first hearing was on August 10th and the commission meeting room was filled to capacity, primarily with church members who had been bussed to the hearing and who were wearing yellow tags saying "We support community standards". Supporters greatly outnumbered opponents to the resolution. Reporters from all local and some national media were present. There were many emotional speeches from those attending, most supported the resolution.
Chairman Bill Byrne read the following statement:
“Cobb County openly and vigorously supports the current community standards and established state laws regarding gay lifestyles; the Board of Commissioners intends to send this message to policy makers of this county such that a previously silent voice will now be heard”
Gordon Wysong the Commissioner from NE Cobb District 3 sponsored the resolution.
Citing local and national events related to gay issues, he said his concerns led him to draft the resolution. The events were (1) related to allowing gays to serve openly in the military; or “an effort to subordinate the national defense of this country to a social agenda”. (2) “The city of Atlanta has tried to sanction so-called gay marriages and then to fund this violation of state law with taxpayer money”. (3) Governor Zell Miller’s invitation to The Gay Olympics to hold the games in Atlanta; “It is mind boggling to imagine what activities constitute gay games”. (4) The 1993 Washington March for LGB Rights platform with 62 items; “there are people bringing this agenda forward and we are reacting to it”. “ Laws and policies about behavior always single out the group engaging in that conduct. This is true of drunk drivers, nude dancers, bigamists, racists and smokers. This should not be construed as an attack on homosexual individuals but it is to recognize the fact that long established community standards do not sanction the conduct, nor does it sanction that this is an acceptable model of conduct”. -Commissioner Gordon Wysong.
West Cobb Commissioner Bill Cooper made brief dissenting remarks: “I have no intention of using my office as a bully pulpit to challenge any group. I don’t care whether it/s American Indians, Jews, gays or WASPS, I would oppose it.” Cooper criticized Wysong’s action as “a political game with a self serving agenda” (MDJ 8/11/93 A-1).
Byrne called for the vote, the motion carried 3-1, Byrne, Wysong and Poole supported, Cooper opposed, Joe L Thompson did not attend the meeting.
The packed room reacted with applause, laughter and “Amens” when the vote 3-1 in favor, posted on the electronic board. Outside the chamber, anti-gay protestor Clelland Jordan held a sign that read Praise God for Aids
The story dominated print and broadcast media for the next two weeks. On August 25th gay activist and spokesman Jon Greaves debated Pat Buchanan on CNN Crossfire; ABC Nightline’s Ted Koppel interviewed Gordon Wysong, and asked if he was going down a “slippery slope”.
Results of polling by the Atlanta Journal Constitution found that the public was “deeply divided” and most felt that “the Cobb commission’s resolution condemning the gay lifestyle did not truly represent the area’s standards” (AJC 8/24/93 C-1) 54% of Cobb respondents believed that the resolution reflected the activity of a few people. Only 33% of Cobb respondents believed it reflected community standards; 71% of respondents stated they had a gay friend or relative (AJC 8/24/93 p C-1).
The small group of gay and straight resolution opponents reacted quickly to mobilize public opinion against the Resolution. A large rally was immediately organized following the August 10th BOC meeting. The Sunday Marietta Daily Journal gave front page coverage to the rally on the Square that brought over 400 people to Cobb to protest the Anti Gay resolution (8/15/93 A-1). According to the article there was a group of hecklers that included J.B. Stoner’s White Power Association.
All of the Commissioners were expected to vote to remove funding from the Arts; the community standards debate had been joined by the fiscal conservative debate, whether funding the arts was a proper function of government. West Cobb Commissioner Bill Cooper, who had voted to oppose the Resolution on the 10th was quoted as saying “The arts funding issue is a taxation issue . . . We are responsible to those taxpayers and must listen to them.” Bill Byrne’s often replayed quote: “We have continued in reducing government. That again is not because we have to, because Cobb County is an affluent county. We did so because we chose to” (MDJ 8/25/93 A-1).
The Commission meeting room was packed again on the 24th, with supporters and opponents of “the gay lifestyle” and county funding of the arts lined up to speak.
There were about 350 people outside the packed commission room, and 250 of those carried signs or banners supporting funding of the arts, and the gay lifestyle (MDJ8/25/93 A-1). After hearing many emotional speakers for and against removing the arts funding, Chairman Byrne got a unanimous vote to remove the roughly $110,000 of county funding for the arts and redirect it to Public Safety (ibid).
With both controversial hearings over, the County wanted to turn to other business and let the controversy die. But opponents of the Resolution and Cobb Commission’s attitude were just gearing up.
Cobb Citizen’s Coalition held its first organizational meeting on August 31st at Paisano’s Restaurant in Smyrna. The first Board of Directors included Co-Chairs Lynne Patterson and Noel Lytle, Treasurer David Mayersky and Secretary Karen DeLoria. Jon Greaves headed the Business Outreach Crew and Carl Lang of GLAD headed up Press Releases. Elaine Hill and Anne McPherson joined CCC not long after this, and when Lynne Patterson relocated, Elaine took her place as CCC Co Chair. CCC’s first project was a planned drive to Boycott Cobb County Galleria Convention Center.
Edna and Boyd McKeown were working with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta to sponsor a workshop on how to deal with problems created by the religious right. The event took place in November and was well attended.
Rabbi Stephen Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth became an ally of Cobb’s gay community, and organized a group of 37 clergy, who publicly asked the Commission to rescind the resolution.
Two of the more newsworthy events carried out by CCC included sponsorship of a study exposing the number of Hate Groups based in Cobb; and raising funds for a highway billboard on I-75 near the South Loop reading “Stop the Hate- Rescind the Resolution”. In 1994 an Atlanta group formed, calling itself Olympics Out of Cobb, and pursued that mission. They joined with CCC on a number of events designed to keep awareness of Cobb’s Resolution in the public eye, and on the table for ACOG, Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. One of the events was a “Rolling Roadblock” on I-75, designed to slow traffic on all lanes. This was done with police cooperation.
Cobb Citizen’s Coalition received national recognition in March 94, when they were awarded the PEN/Newman “First Amendment Award” for their courageous stand in Cobb County. The June Gay Pride Festival in Atlanta brought further gratification when CCC was the featured guest and was cheered by 100,000 attendees of the Pride Parade as they marched down the parade route.
The fallout from the county's Anti Gay Resolution and defunding of the arts lasted from early August 1993, through the period leading up to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Ultimately, Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games made the decision to move a planned venue from Cobb County and the Olympic Torch bypassed Cobb as well.
The Resolution was never rescinded, but it was presumed to no longer be valid, since none of the original commissioners voting for it remained in office.
Marietta Theatre on the Square continued to operate until spring 2012 when it closed, due to the ongoing recession.
I have also known several folks who never came inside the Perimeter due to fear of crime. Perimeter mall was as close as they'd get and they viewed that as pretty risky.
And my 92 year old mother still drives herself from Meriwether to Emory to see her doctor right thru the connector to Freedom Pkwy and recently told me of a great find on fabric she found over in the Howell Mill/West Atlanta outlets after her appointment. She has more in cahunas than most of those folks, lol.
And my 92 year old mother still drives herself from Meriwether to Emory to see her doctor right thru the connector to Freedom Pkwy and recently told me of a great find on fabric she found over in the Howell Mill/West Atlanta outlets after her appointment. She has more in cahunas than most of those folks, lol.
My 87 year old aunt still drives herself from Woolsey (S Fayette Co) to Northside up the connector and 400 to see the doctor she's gone to for years. This notion that people out in the suburbs are "afraid" to come into the city is silly. Bankhead or Hollywood? That's a different story. Two of the scariest experiences I've ever had was pumping gas on Fulton Industrial and being caught in a gunfight, and having my car literally surrounded by drug dealers and prostitutes at a stoplight on Metropolitan Parkway (aka Stewart Avenue).
Are parts of Atlanta dangerous? Absolutely! There are parts of Savannah that I'd never go to in the daytime. But by and large, most cities are perfectly safe for most people most of the time. But it only takes one time (or a really sensational news story) to permanently instill fear in people.
Same anecdotal experience here. My Marietta/Kennesaw/Woodstock orb of friends by and large loved going into Atlanta for any reason and didn't see themselves as different.... economic forces by and large put them in the burbs.
I do remember a close friend of my sister-in-law claiming (somewhat proudly) that going to the city for her was to go to Cumberland Mall and she never went further south than that. When Town Center opened, she said she had no reason to even go to Cumberland. But that's about the only thing I can think of... where someone had an actual fear of going into the CoA.
On the other hand I had a college friend that refused to come out to visit us because he thought he would be pulled over at the county line for being gay. This was in the heyday of the Cobb commissioners' stance against paying gay partnership benefits and all the brouhaha that followed... mid 90s. I had to remind him that he had lived in Shelby County, Alabama just a few years before, and if they hadn't stoned him there, they weren't going to in Cobb.
So, in my day to day experience.... one example of each side of this coin. Rarely encountered it otherwise. Unless it has entered into the collective consciousness since I left.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arjay57
I have also known several folks who never came inside the Perimeter due to fear of crime. Perimeter mall was as close as they'd get and they viewed that as pretty risky.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pemgin
Wow. I can't imagine how much pearl jewelry they ruined from clutching them so hard.
As irrational as they may seem now, the fears of OTP suburbanites who refused to venture inside the I-285 Perimeter in decades past were not completely unjustified.
That's because the city of Atlanta experienced well over 200 homicides per year on average every year between about 1970 and 1994.
Until about the mid 1990's, the city of Atlanta was also home to the largest cluster of very low-income public housing developments (housing projects) in the eastern half of the country south of Washington D.C.
Techwood Homes (which was only a few blocks south of the Georgia Tech campus and has since been redeveloped into higher-quality mixed-income and student apartment housing) was one of the worst (highest-crime) public housing projects in the entire nation.
Until Atlanta's winning bid to host the Olympics sparked an increased level of redevelopment and revitalization of many Intown areas in the 1990's, the city of Atlanta (like almost all major cities across the nation) had some really rough-and-tumble areas.....A factor which contributed to the Atlanta metro area reportedly being the second-most dangerous metro area in the nation at one time.
The fact that the city of Atlanta was an extremely high-crime area in the past is something that is lost on many metro Atlantans today.....That's because, a) it was so long ago (the city of Atlanta has not experienced 200 or more homicides in a year since about 1993 or '94, more than 2 decades ago), and b) because the crime in the city of Atlanta is so much significantly lower today than it was during the very violent period in the city from the late 1960's through the mid 1990's (the city of Atlanta has not consistently experienced 100 or more homicides in a year since about 2008 or so).
As irrational as they may seem now, the fears of OTP suburbanites who refused to venture inside the I-285 Perimeter in decades past were not completely unjustified.
That's because the city of Atlanta experienced well over 200 homicides per year on average every year between about 1970 and 1994.
Until about the mid 1990's, the city of Atlanta was also home to the largest cluster of very low-income public housing developments (housing projects) in the eastern half of the country south of Washington D.C.
Techwood Homes (which was only a few blocks south of the Georgia Tech campus and has since been redeveloped into higher-quality mixed-income and student apartment housing) was one of the worst (highest-crime) public housing projects in the entire nation.
Until Atlanta's winning bid to host the Olympics sparked an increased level of redevelopment and revitalization of many Intown areas in the 1990's, the city of Atlanta (like almost all major cities across the nation) had some really rough-and-tumble areas.....A factor which contributed to the Atlanta metro area reportedly being the second-most dangerous metro area in the nation at one time.
The fact that the city of Atlanta was an extremely high-crime area in the past is something that is lost on many metro Atlantans today.....That's because, a) it was so long ago (the city of Atlanta has not experienced 200 or more homicides in a year since about 1993 or '94, more than 2 decades ago), and b) because the crime in the city of Atlanta is so much significantly lower today than it was during the very violent period in the city from the late 1960's through the mid 1990's (the city of Atlanta has not consistently experienced 100 or more homicides in a year since about 2008 or so).
Valid points, B2R.
We used to get routinely mentioned in those news articles talking about America's "murder capital" and "most dangerous cities." The 1970s and 80s were a tough time for our town.
Even then, however, most violent crime occurred in a few parts of town. Most of the city was safe. We have lived here a long time and have never really felt unsafe.
But I can understand that folks who didn't understand the situation may have misperceived the danger. As Newsboy and Saintmarks have mentioned, little old ladies have been buzzing around the city for a long time and offhand I can't recall any occasion where one of them was harmed. My grandma lived in a neighborhood on the southwest side of the city that had experienced considerable turmoil and become mostly black. However, she rode the bus to church, drove her car to the grocery store, and tended her yard without problems for many years.
Your post just made me think of something related. I recently learned something about the '96 Olympics I didn't know before. I read a story about how Cobb county passed some sort of county ordinance that restricted homosexuals in some way. Maybe it was renting, I can't remember all the details at the moment. But anyway, their was a major backlash and protests for the Olympics to pull out of Cobb county events. Bumper stickers saying "Olympics out of Cobb!" and detouring the flame were the results. The protests grew so large the Olympic Committee did just that. They removed all activities from Cobb. I think that might be the real root of some of the ITP/OTP animosity. I think many hipsters and progressives held onto that view that the surrounding suburbs were the "redneckish" types and they were the sophisticated types in town. Coupled with the anti-minority marches in Forsyth as recently as 1980's, it still lingers as it wasn't that long ago some of this stuff fed the image.
I certainly have no intention of partaking in such behavior.
That's an excellent point that the Cobb anti-gay ordinances during the era of the lead-up to the Atlanta Olympics in the early-mid 1990's contributed heavily to any lingering ongoing ITP/OTP animosity.
But the roots of the any real and/or perceived lingering ongoing differences between ITP metro Atlanta and OTP metro Atlanta go even deeper than the Cobb anti-gay resolution controversies of the mid 1990's.
The roots of the ITP/OTP differences go back to the post-World War II era when white residents began to leave the city in droves for the suburbs as was the case in every major city in the country.
As white residents left the city in droves for the suburbs (first to areas like DeKalb, South Fulton and Clayton, and then later to Cobb, Gwinnett and North Fulton), Atlanta's black political elites rose in power and influence, eventually to the point where the City of Atlanta's first black mayoral administration, Maynard Jackson was elected to office in 1973.
As black political elites gained power in the city of Atlanta as whites abandoned the city, Atlanta's suburban areas rose in power as they filled up with whites moving out of the city.
The suburbs were naturally much more conservative than the city. Though because it was home to a large military installation (Dobbins Air Force Base) and a very large military/defense industrial operation (Lockheed), two operations that depended upon the strength of the nation's armed forces and sparked much patriotism, the conservative culture might have become slightly more pronounced in Cobb County than it was in other Atlanta suburbs.
Because the conservative suburban culture seemed to be more pronounced in Cobb County than in Atlanta's other conservative suburbs (ranging from more conservative in Cobb to less-conservative/moderate/slightly progressive in DeKalb), Cobb County has often seen itself as the conservative cultural suburban answer to the city of Atlanta's famous urban cultural progressivism.
Like in the article that I linked to, a major part of the motivation for the anti-gay ordinances in Cobb County in the mid-1990's was to push back against the socially and culturally progressive agenda that many of Cobb's deeply conservative leaders thought the City of Atlanta was actively promoting in the lead-up to the 1996 Olympics.
The Cobb anti-gay ordinances of the mid-1990's just served to vividly highlight sharp political, social and cultural differences that had been ongoing for a long time between the ITP urban core and the OTP suburbs.
As the metro area has continued to grow into a region and more than double in population from the pre-Olympic era (metro Atlanta had about 3 million people or so before the Olympics, the metro region now has about 6.3 million people or so currently), that I-285 dividing line (which once separated the suburbs from the exurbs) has become a rough dividing line between the increasingly sophisticated inner-urban core and the increasingly sophisticated inner-suburban core.
Instead of seeing fearful OTP suburbanites that are afraid to go inside the Perimeter because of fears of crime, we now see affluent ITP urbanites who may think that they are too sophisticated to go outside I-285.....A phenomenon that can sometimes be seen in major cities like New York where there are some affluent Manhattanites who may think that they are too sophisticated to go off of the island of Manhattan on more than an infrequent basis, or in Washington D.C. (a city/metro that has made a similar transition from mid-sized provincial Southeastern town to major international metro region as Atlanta has made) where many affluent Washingtonians may think that they are too sophisticated to go outside the I-495 Capital Beltway and/or even outside of the District of Columbia on more than an infrequent basis.
This urban/suburban animosity is not unusual for large major cities with somewhat sophisticated and cosmopolitan urban cultures where suburbanites think that there is too much crime and poverty in the urban core and urbanites think that the outlying suburbs are too culturally bland and unsophisticated.....It is just something that is a feature of living in a dynamic large major region of more than 6 million people with a very strong urban core and a very strong suburban/exurban culture.....Two differing metropolitan cultures that are going to clash with each other at times when it comes to who is going to lead the way in guiding the society politically, socially and culturally.
Wow. I can't imagine how much pearl jewelry they ruined from clutching them so hard.
Pemgin, you made me chuckle, remembering something. Back n in 1990, I worked with a young woman in Marietta. She was so fearful (paranoid) about riding Marta that she kept her jewelry in her mouth during the ride!
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