But he said what has happened at Kaesong wasn't a watershed moment like the shelling of a front-line South Korean island or the sinking of a South Korean warship, two attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

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Although there haven't been similar watershed events since, Schreiber and Groff said that the most similar event could be the 2008 election campaign, during which many young people rallied behind Barack Obama.

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"Obviously these projects aren't going to solve the infrastructure need, but they will get people employed, " said Atlanta Watershed Management Commissioner Robert Hunter, the city's water and sewer systems chief.

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