Describe Atlanta based on your subject research. What are some initial impressions of the city based on your reading?

For the Atlanta project, I have been assigned to research Atlanta politics, 1950-2000. There is a particular book that I found that directly relates to this subject matter, a book by a group of authors, Bullard, Johnson and Torres entitled "Sprawl City: Rae, Politics, and Planning in Atlanta." The book was published in 2000 so it provides the right information with regards to the subject and the time period. What I've read so far is that Atlanta, like all other industrializing cities, experienced such a huge amount of influx into the suburbs (termed "suburban sprawl") which created problems, especially for people in poverty (specifically non-whites, poor, non-educated, lower class). The local city government was very focused on developing the city, putting up malls and such, while the "wealth disparity" was ever so increasing. Apparently, efforts to reduce poverty and these disparities had only benefitted in the 1960's and not so much in the 1990's. So far, the book looks very interesting, and it will be even more interesting to see what predictions (if it has any) it may make about Atlanta after the year 2000 since some comparisons can be made between what the book predicts and how reality turned out.