Washington says we are better than this.
On May 29, 2020, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms delivered a message as cities across the country protested over the murder of George Floyd. Atlanta was the most forward-looking city in the South and Bottoms could not forget who she was or what her people needed.
She embraced the tension in a candid way. She said of the racism that Floyd's killing put on such grotesque display that she prays over her children each and every day. She said that we didn't do this to our city when Dr. King was killed.
With Donald Trump no longer stoking racial divisions from the White House or on social media, Bottoms surprised Atlanta and the Democratic establishment by announcing she wouldn't run for a second term. She said that just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it.
Earlier this year Bottoms was appointed a senior White House adviser on external affairs. She joined an administration rife with former mayors, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
In a recent interview with Yahoo News, Bottoms talked about how far American cities have come since 2020. She pleaded for patience in a nation that is restless after two years of restrictions and shortages. The American city is a reflection of where we are.
A quick survey of the crowds in New York City or the National Mall in Washington shows that tourists are back. Office workers haven't done anything. Restaurants are doing well. More than 159,000 eating establishments have closed across the country in the last five years. This includes places like the Plum Tree Inn, a mainstay in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, and the City Tavern in Philadelphia, as well as casual downtown eateries that were unable to compete with corporate chains.
People want to get out and about and get back to normal life. Inflation has raised the price of many social experiences, making a 2022 staycation potentially as expensive as traveling. A family of four can expect to pay an average of $204 for a baseball game in the year 2022. The affordability of cities has been put in stark relief by the Pandemic.
The fear of crime has been linked to the fear of the coronaviruses to make people feel that lawlessness is still alive and well. Murder and rape dropped in the biggest American cities in the first six months of 2022, according to a report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association. The increases in robbery and assault were steep.
The Bottoms did not join calls to defund the police, instead arguing that Atlanta was already doing the work that criminal justice activists wanted. President Biden is caught between his support of law enforcement and a Democratic base demanding reforms that moderates would likely resist.
We know that people want to have a good relationship with the police. The former mayor told Yahoo News that everyone wants to return home safely at the end of the day. She argued that most officers want to be in the community.
The order signed by Biden restricts the flow of military equipment to federal law enforcement. militarization of police has always been a local issue, and Congress would have to address it.
The president wants an assault weapons ban. Military-style rifles account for a small fraction of the guns used to commit crime in the US.
Young Black men are more affected by violent crime than the rest of the population. The crimes that are covered by the press are usually not crimes of this nature. In recent years, the most high-profile murder in Atlanta has to be that of a white woman who was stabbed to death while walking her dog. Fearful of crime, the Buckhead district, a bastion of white wealth that is a gateway to Atlanta's coveted northern suburbs, has tried to secede from the city in an effort that has echoes of midcentury attempts to avoid school integration.
It will be a test of resilience in the fall of 2022. Factors that remain beyond the control of mayors, governors and even the president make resilience dependent on them. There is a new variant of the corona virus. A spike in gas prices could affect return-to-office plans and put pressure on small downtown businesses.
Bottoms is optimistic. She said that they had made it to the other side. We are still standing.
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