vol. XX no. 2
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Atlanta’s
“Sewer Mayor” Shirley Franklin gives State of Business a first look
back on her two terms as City’s Chief Executive; talks roads, airport,
Timbuktu, and the impact of Robinson and Georgia State
 As Shirley Franklin nears the end of her second historic term as
Atlanta’s mayor, she’s thinking of accomplishments, of collaborations
with business, of partnering with the university community, including
Georgia State and the Robinson College of Business, and yes, of course,
of sewers.
“The hardest thing I do is implementing the Clean Water Atlanta
program,” Franklin says. “People love to hate it. Other jurisdictions
want to take pot shots, and I know it’s not perfect.”
The $3.2 billion overhaul of Atlanta’s aging water and sewer system may
not be perfect, but it was necessary. While Atlanta’s population
continued to grow, its water and sewage pipes crumbled. By the 1980s,
the city was struggling to comply with federal water standards,
eventually facing a lawsuit filed by the EPA and others for violation.
Furthermore, city leaders recognized that lack of clean drinking water
and wastewater could affect more than health and the environment. It
could threaten economic growth, jobs, and quality of life.
Franklin, Atlanta’s first female mayor and the first African American
woman to serve as mayor of a major Southern city, took on the aging
sewers early in her first administration. Now in the last months of her
second term, the visionary leader has met many of Atlanta’s other
challenges head-on, from restoring government accountability to
tackling crises such as the potential closing of Grady Memorial
Hospital, Atlanta’s primary hospital for the uninsured
and North Georgia’s only level-1 trauma center.
Economic development is a theme that Franklin has pounded on city
streets. The pro-business mayor believes that healthy communities come
from healthy institutions—churches and nonprofit agencies, businesses,
and a well-managed government—all working together. And she’s not
afraid to ask for big investments from both private and public sources
to support the large-scale, long-term projects she believes Atlanta
needs. Projects like Atlantic Station, the model urban renewal,
mixed-use community built on the site of a former steel mill. Or
proposals like the $2.8 billion Beltline that will link public parks,
multi-use trails, and transit along an historic railroad corridor
connecting intown neighborhoods. Or the redevelopment
of Ft. McPherson from an Army base into a scientific research park.
“We’ve got to be investing in our infrastructure, transit, health
care,” Franklin says. “We can’t get behind for another 40 years like we
did with water.”
Continued on next page
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