Looking at our list of top stories for 2019, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed as an editor.
After all, we pride ourselves in being a publication that primarily uses business as the lens through which we illuminate the ways Atlanta is connected to the world — or more specifically, to the global economy.
Quickly, though, the list dispels any notion that readers arriving at our website are concerned with our high-minded notions about what content they should consume. If the numbers don’t lie, the city’s cultural connections were paramount.
Topping this year’s list is a short one we wrote about the real estate deal to turn Gwinnett Place Mall into one of 14 cricket stadiums around the country. It seems now to have fallen through, with the spurned developer launching a legal battle against the sport’s newly formed governing body in the U.S.
Whatever the outcome, the story does underscore one point: Almost nothing — even the purist of cultural endeavors — can escape commercial imperatives, and they often reinforce each other. Our No. 2 story illustrates that.
Every year since its inception in 2016, the Atlanta Christkindl Market has been a fan favorite on our site. This year was no different. Our story drilled down into its move to Centennial Park and what the massive expansion that ensued means for the monetary goals behind it: funding German language and educational programs.
Economic development was a more traditional theme represented in the top 19, with stories on a new Japanese glass factory (4), a Korean brake plant (11), and a Chinese appliance giant (13) all making the list.
The verdict on one popular story remains to be pronounced: Georgia in April was in the running for a Fisker electric vehicle plant (18) that has yet to pick its new home, despite plans to ramp up production by 2021.
We also saw stories on international collaboration and high-level government visits resonate with readers. Both the Serbian and Jamaican prime ministers came to town (ranked 12 and 7 respectively), and Taipei’s mayor dropped in to celebrate 40 years of sister-city relations with Atlanta, while Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport signed new airport agreements with Prague and Paris.
Kenya’s ambassador gets an honorable mention for having two stories on the list from the interview we conducted with him after an Atlanta Council on International Relations speech. One focused on the Nairobi flight prospects for Delta Air Lines, which also made the list for the story outlining how it decided to m, restoring nonstop India service.
It was also rewarding to see readers respond to our No. 3 story, which outlined the ways the community could provide money and goods to the Bahamas via its local consulate during the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian.
Ultimately, the below snippets were part a full year, with our team publishing hundreds of articles that pushed the lifetime total for our nearly 30-year-old publication to more than 12,000.
We hope you will explore these and many more, while also challenging us to increase both the quantity and quality of our output in 2020:
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Development Group Closes Deal to Turn Gwinnett Place Mall Into Cricket Stadium Complex — Feb. 28
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Atlanta’s German Christmas Market Grows With New Centennial Park Location — Dec. 6
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Consulate Outlines How Atlantans Can Help the Bahamas With Hurricane Dorian Relief — Sept. 4
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Japan-Backed Factory in South Georgia Aims to Offset Glass Bottle Imports — Aug. 9
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Delta Picks New York, not Atlanta, for Nonstop India Flight — April 30
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Peugeot Set to Return to U.S. and Canada, but Groupe PSA in ‘No Hurry’ to Expand From Atlanta Base — Feb 26
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Jamaica’s Prime Minister Aims to Lure Georgia Trade Office Amid New Era of Growth — April 22
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Indonesia’s Ambassador Visits Atlanta to Promote New Restaurant Offering Fine Dining — Feb. 3
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First Exported Kia Telluride SUVs Head From Georgia to the Middle East — Feb. 27
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How Delta Could Help Kenya Airways Launch an Atlanta-Nairobi Flight — April 12
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Hits Keep on Coming: Korean Brake Manufacturer Chooses Georgia for $20M Plant — March 21
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Serbia’s Prime Minister to Visit NCR in Atlanta Ahead of Fintech Giant’s Planned Investment — Jan. 28
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Georgia Announces $130 Million Chinese Investment — Without Mentioning China — June 21
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Kenya’s Ambassador Challenges U.S. to Match Chinese Investment and Promote People-to-People Exchanges April 8
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With New Agreement, Taipei and Atlanta Seek to Revive Decades-Old Trade Ties — March 21
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Atlanta’s Fintech Ecosystem Matures With Global Investment, Outreach — May 8
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Diplomats Learn How Georgia Tech’s Coda Building Orchestrates Innovation — March 27
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Georgia in the Running for Fisker’s Electric SUV Factory — April 8
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Hartfield-Jackson Hopes Prague Airport Agreement Will Spur Nonstop Flight — April 5
A few caveats to this list:
- It’s biased toward stories that were published earlier in the year, given that they had more time to accumulate and readership. That says a lot for the stories that made the list even while being published during the final months of the year.
- Given that this is calculated based on pageviews on our website, the list might reveal more about popularity of certain search terms than the preferences of our nearly 11,000 email subscribers, though these are often well correlated. These rankings don’t include any social-media performance metrics.
- The top category of content, thanks to the sheer volume of posts, was event listings — some for us but most for outside organizations on our aggregated calendar. For those listings, visit www.globalatlanta.com/events
–Managing Editor Trevor Williams
Feedback on this or anything else? Email twilliams@globalatlanta.com.
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