Now five months into its new identity as Invest Atlanta, the former Atlanta Development Authority is embarking on some proactive, big picture planning to chart Atlanta's future growth and prosperity. With a $400,000 IBM Smarter Cities grant in its pocket (a fascinating story on this IBM program and its deployment in Rio de Janiero can be found here), IA is hiring big-gun economic consultants to assess the city's "weaknesses, opportunities and threats" as a starting point for building new economic development strategies. Sketches of Atlanta's challenges have been well-enumerated in various media over the past several months; getting to their roots and moreover, building a broad coalition to address them within the state the city is located is where the hard work begins. [Saporta Report]
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