Chattanooga on a Roll

"Chattanooga," proclaims a 1924 promotional brochure whose cover features artistically rendered belching smokestacks, "is a divine masterpiece in the making." Unfortunately, the roaring fires of this industrial riverfront city came to symbolize something other than progress. By 1969, just before the first Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency had bestowed on Chattanooga a special award for being "the dirtiest city in America." Visitors to Lookout Mountain, which boasts that it offers views of seven states, were lucky if they could see two.

But look at Chattanooga now. The Clean Air Act forced city manufacturers to invest in $40 million worth of pollution control equipment, and by 1988 the city's air was "in attainment." That was only the beginning. Who knew that Chattanooga would soon become as green as Peter Pan's tights? The city can boast of a leaf-lined river walk along its redeveloped downtown, a freshwater aquarium where conservation is the byword, a free electric bus shuttle, the world's longest pedestrian bridge, and plans for a zero-emissions eco-industrial park and a grass-roofed convention center. Vice President Al Gore said in 1995 that Chattanooga "has undergone the kind of transformation that needs to happen in our country as a whole."

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