I was nothing but the Mayor of Atlanta and a friend and neighbor of 106 people who had been killed at this same airport only the day before...These were my lifelong friends. This was my generation. This was also the backbone of Atlanta's cultural society, the city's leading patrons of the arts. There was no precedent for this kind of agony". In 1965, Allen made a very private commitment to himself and to his wife Louise that he would not seek a third term in office. This was not revealed to the public until January 1969, when Allen formally announced his decision at a meeting of the Atlanta Rotary Club. That year, he refused to publicly endorse any particular candidate in the mayoral race, until just days before the runoff between Sam Massell and Rodney Cook, when reports surfaced suggesting that Allen's vice-mayor and mayoral-elect, Massell, had abused his power as vice-mayor through misuse of the Atlanta Police Department. On the Sunday before the election, Allen called for a press conference and asked Massell to immediately withdraw from consideration "for an office which requires intuitive integrity and instinctive withdrawal from even the suspicion and appearance of evil." Despite the backlash he received, Allen wrote, "Had my candidate, Rodney Cook been involved in the same affair I am convinced I would have taken the same action – except... I would have gone into greater detail to make the public fully understand the seriousness of the situation". Sam Massell went on to win the election and succeed Allen as the 53rd mayor of Atlanta. Economic development of Atlanta Under Mayor Allen's Forward Atlanta program, the city's population grew more than 30 percent. Atlanta ranked in the top ten in the nation in downtown construction, with more than 55 new buildings constructed and 22,000 new jobs created each year. In 1969, Atlanta's unemployment rate at one point plummeted to an astonishing 1.9 percent. Eleven of the city's twelve tallest buildings were constructed during the sixties, and the Atlanta International Airport (now Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport), acquired its first direct international air routes and saw its ranking change from the tenth-busiest airport in the nation to the third-busiest. In an attempt to manage the city's vast increase in traffic, Allen oversaw the early phases of construction of the Interstate 285 perimeter and the Downtown Connector, and presided over the creation of the Metropolitan Atlanta