Olympic Strategy Of Downtown Atlanta Business Elites: A Case Study Of The 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics

The goal of this research is to understand the role, influence, and attitudes of downtown Atlanta business elites on downtown redevelopment policies. The downtown business elites has dominated the local politics of Atlanta for decades in order to achieve their redevelopment objectives. This research investigates the behavior of Atlanta business elites on downtown redevelopment policies from 1950s to 2000s in light of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games experience. This research explored the interplay between Atlanta’s downtown business elites and the city elected officials as well as other interested parties in order to analyze the power and involvement of elites on the urban policy-making process. This study is grounded in urban regime theory to analyze how the business elites of downtown Atlanta attempted to transform Atlanta from a regional-national hub into an international city using the city’s hosting of the Olympic Games as a convenient vehicle to implement their vision.

First, the author lays out the picture in 1950s by introducing the regime actors in Atlanta and by explaining how the regime was shaped and has evolved over decades. Next, the author investigates how the business elites used the Olympics as a convenient vehicle to implement their own vision for downtown redevelopment. Finally, the author discusses the short- and long- term impacts of the Olympics on downtown Atlanta redevelopment. By establishing a connection between the Olympic bidding idea, Olympic legacy, and the changing role of downtown Atlanta business elites in urban policy-making process, this study contributes to the body of literature in urban politics by linking the regime theory and mega-event literatures to expand the understanding of Atlanta’s local political power structure and the city’s policy dynamics in light of the 1996 Olympic experience.