Remember back in the '60's how mammoth high rise, sprawling buildings were going to take the poor out of dilapidated urban "ghettos" and transfer them optimistically to decent housing? It didn't take very long to realize that what those hulking eyesores created were high rise sprawling "ghettos" that converted low rise neighborhoods into high rise corridors and stairways of fear.

Atlanta has been handling its housing woes in this manner since 1936 with the awesome fact that more Atlantans live in projects than in any other city in America.

According to a recent New York Times article however, "...Atlanta may be nearing a very different record: becoming the first major city to knock them all down." Hooray! Their attitude is apparently one of decentralization. 'We've realized,' said Renee L. Glover, the executive director of the Atlanta Housing Authority, 'that concentrating families in poverty is very destructive.' It's not a new urban solution for them. They began bulldozing, about 15,000 units spread across 32 housing projects to date, some of which housed as many as 2,500 residents, fifteen years ago (remember the Olympic Games?). Residents of the demolished housing have been scattered throughout the city to mixed-income communities and private housing financed with vouchers.

It's not a perfect solution since uprooting can lead to homelessness for residents who don't meet economic voucher criteria, especially in an emerging crisis economy. However, the model has been spreading to other cities across the country with more than 195,000 housing units demolished since 2006, with 230,000 more units scheduled to disappear, according to HUD.

Some cynical homelessness advocates feel that the real winners in the huge plan are developers who make fortunes once the projects are torn down and the neighborhoods gentrify with Atlantans tired of commuting and ready to return to the city. Because most of the project residents have been traditionally African Americans, redistribution only brings up the specter of racial discrimination.

Ms Glover, who is well known in housing circles and hailed as a visionary, does not blame the projects of the 1930's. She says it worked during the New Deal. The problems began when they became more racially segregated and became hotbeds of drug crime. Her feeling is that the new approach to an old solution serves the majority; that makes it a step forward.

Are you from Atlanta? What do you think? Do you have a better idea? Are you familiar with The Lifelong Communities Initiative? We'd like to know.