City on the Verge: Atlanta and the Fight for America’s Urban Future

Pendergrast (For God, Country, and Coca-Cola), an Atlanta native, devotes this detailed study to how the city might be revived and reimagined for the 21st century. Mixing planning, history, and personal anecdotes, he describes an urban renewal project’s path from grassroots idea to $4 billion project, slated for 2030 completion. The BeltLine, a collection of abandoned rail lines ringing Atlanta, could reconnect wildly disparate elements of a city that “sold its soul to the automobile” and has long been equated with urban sprawl riven with racial and economic inequality. The key: connected light rail, trails, pedestrian paths, and improved accessibility. Pendergrast has an obvious love for both the city and the energy behind the BeltLine project, but the level of neighborhood-by-neighborhood detail may be daunting for nonresidents. At the conclusion, the scope widens as he invokes similar projects, but this section touches only lightly on broader planning principles. More tellingly, his most powerful anecdote involves a beloved African-American maid who worked for his family for decades and lived less than eight miles away. He first saw her house nearly 40 years after her death in 1975, while doing research for the book. [em]Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM. (May) [/em]