If the nation boomed in the 1990's, Atlanta exploded.

But what fueled Atlanta's eye-popping growth in the 1990's has proved the city's economic undoing in the last year and a half.

The most poignant illustrations of the downturn are the roughly 20,000 highly skilled but suddenly unemployed workers who were laid off from telecom and technology companies with headquarters or major operations in Atlanta. The companies include ... Internet Security Systems ...