(Akiit.com) ATLANTA, GA There are fears in Atlanta’s black community that its declining presence in the population could shrink its political influence and endanger social policies that support diversity, Mayor Shirley Franklin said Friday.

“It’s not spoken about much, but there are concerns that we will lose, as African-Americans, our political base, which has largely been the city of Atlanta for major leadership within the state,” Franklin said.

She spoke in Manhattan as part of a panel discussing urban issues and the middle class.

“We are more diverse, but less black and white than we were 30 years ago,” Franklin said, noting the influx of Hispanics and Asians and the migration of blacks to surrounding areas. “African-Americans are choosing to live outside the city for the same reasons everyone is, which is bigger house, so-called better schools.”

Since the 1970s and 1980s, Atlanta’s black residents have gone from representing upwards of 70 percent of the city’s population to less than 60 percent, Franklin said.

“African-Americans of the city of Atlanta have been among the most progressive on issues of inclusion of anyone,” Franklin said. “In our metropolitan area, there have been traditions of exclusion, so we are concerned that the loss of political power might undermine the progression of these social policies.”

The panel at Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy also included Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and Thomas Suozzi, executive of Nassau County on New York’s Long Island.

Fenty said Washington, whose black population is gradually losing its majority status, has experienced a crisis where a lack of affordable housing has pushed people out of the city.

He said “if the city doesn’t get involved — and the private sector — it will become a place where only very wealthy people can live.”

Former Atlanta resident Akua Kamau-Harris, 59, now a teacher living on Long Island, told the panel she worries that buying a first home is increasingly hard for young people. “It was not out of reach for the five children that I raised,” she said. “But I don’t see that happening for my grandchildren.”

At the event, organizers announced a $120,000 scholarship fund to support students from Atlanta, Washington and Nassau County who want to pursue graduate study at the Milano school.

The discussion ranged from the challenges of urban sprawl to the importance of cities in presidential politics.

Fenty and Suozzi said urban issues will be very important in the 2008 election. Franklin said so far that debate has been lacking.

Franklin said the biggest challenges facing Atlanta and other cities include improving infrastructure such as mass transit and funding education, which is critical for raising people from poverty into the middle class.

Maintaining the environment also is a major challenge as Atlanta quickly grows, Franklin said.

“People are driving to find housing that they can afford that they believe is suitable to their position and it is requiring more and more asphalt,” she said. “We are sprawl personified.”

By DAVID HO

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm and is filed under African-American News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.