The start of the demolition of the public housing units at Bowen Homes (June 3) represents the last large public housing complex to be demolished in Atlanta, Georgia.

Atlanta Housing Authority President /CEO Renee L. Glover has overseen the largest transformation of public housing in the country. The rebuilding of the units along with private developers into mixed-income communities became the model for the nation.

Atlanta was the first city to build public housing units in the 1930s under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. In 2010, the city will become the first city to demolish all of its old public housing communities.

Glover told the audience present for the demolition ceremony: "Over time, poor public policies coverged with failing social dynamics and a scourge of drugs and crime. Bowen Homes--and every other large public housing project in Atlanta -- was condemned to the same fateful nightmare. The housing projects built in the 1930s under the "New Deal" were just as destined as those built in the 1960s under the "Great Society."

" In the end, concentrating the city's poorest most vulnerable citizens in an isolated, out of the way concrete warehouse and then lowering the standards -- not requiring people to work; and on and on -- has a way of stripping away personal pride and dignity."

(On a personal note from this reporter , Stan Washington, a native of Atlanta, to see the transformation of the public housing communities is nearly unbelievable. They no longer  look like poor people concentration camps.)

www.atlantahousing.org