Originally Posted by
woodje12
I was just building on the story of how Birmingham narrowly missed out on being Delta's HQ and hub. History has shown that the city leaders of Birmingham, setting aside the "content of their character" completely, were abysmal business and civic leaders. By putting their "values" of bigotry and hate ahead of the economic well-being of all, they permanently handicapped their own city's development and long-term prosperity. At the outset of the civil rights movement, Birmingham and Atlanta were roughly comparable economies. As of 2017, Atlanta was just shy of $400B in GDP while Birmingham was around $60B and even on a per capita basis it's $57K versus $49K.
While there could be some individual consumer decisions to not to do business with or in ATL/GA, I think the more likely and frankly painful repercussions are likely to come from corporate relocations and to a lesser extent mega-events (e.g., Super Bowl, NCAA, large conventions) that spurn ATL and GA due to the actions of the local government(s) -- be it state or city as was pointed out in another post.
This is a fascinating discussion.
As a student of Georgia History (the version mandated to be taught in Georgia public schools), I was initially instilled with the belief that Atlanta was destined to grow as it did because of a combination of its location, rail terminus, and weird combination of a unified city nexus surrounded by disorganized/easily swayed suburbs. Birmingham on the other hand was further from the Atlantic ports, had a "lesser" inline rail hub primarily to serve mines and steel industry in the area, and had a city nexus surrounded by suburbs that were actually quite organized and in opposition to growth.
It certainly follows from a more wizened mind that local politics of the time had more to do with the different paths than just geography and proximity to the coast, of course. But I'd also add that in this respect Atlanta had the added benefit of the city also being the seat of the state government. Where local progressives in Birmingham had to battle on values with a state government 2 hours away; the state and local lawmakers in Atlanta were literally walking the same streets every day.