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Atlanta's population grows 62 percent


Martinman

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"No big city grows — and shrinks — at a higher rate each workday than the nation's capital, but Atlanta comes close, the Census Bureau said.

Washington, D.C., sees its daytime population swell by 72 percent each day as commuters stream in. Atlanta is second among large cities at 62 percent or 260,000 people."

Wow, can you imagine what Atlanta would be like if even half of those workers made their homes in the city rather than the burbs? I'm guessing a 30 story condo would hold maybe 300 good sized units, so it would take another 433 such towers to house these folks. That would fill in the skyline from downtown to Buckhead pretty nicely.
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All of those people consume city services. From tying up police with their numerous fender benders to the use of city water to the traffic generated. My question...is this fair? The authorized force of APD is based on policing roughly 500K people, which is, give or take, the population of the city. Same with AFD. I find something inherantly wrong with someone making their living in our city, but contributing nothing (save the sales tax dollars they contribute buying lunch) to the services that we pay for. I would love to see some sort of tax/toll that is levied on all of these people to help offset the cost they create. A parking tax maybe or tolls on the interstates would do much to take the financial burdun off of the residents of Atlanta. Any thoughts?

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If you want to see them stay out of town and work in the suburbs then just go ahead and tax them. Keep in mind that many of the roads are maintained by our state taxes and so many of the city's services including police are supported in part by state and county taxes. My parents live in Alpharetta (Fulton) and pay a huge amount for Grady.

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The Grady Health System is a partnership between Fulton and DeKalb County, living within these boundaries your parents do pay for this, but are also entitled to use it. It's not as if your parents help provide this hospital for us city dwellers. I absolutely understand what you are saying about undue taxation, and I am not a fan of unnecesary taxes. Any time a bedroom commuity exists, this situation will occur. Look at it from a historical view. Originally the well to do were the ones whome asconded to the 'burbs just outside the city limits. They were able to still "use" the city to earn their living, but were free from having to help maintain essential city services. That is still essentially true today. Granted, there are a greater number of employment centers and commuting patterns are more random, but there are still a great number of true bedroom communities in existance. This all ties into the fact that those whom make their home in the auto designed suburbs don't actually bare all of the expense. I'll use this as an example:

let's say your parents drive in from Alpharetta to visit Atlantic Station, and I walk up there. They are consuming a service that I am not, mainly the cost of parking. Now, I don't pay a lower price for things I buy at Atlantic Station's retailers since the developer has internalized the cost of this parking in the rent that they charge the retailers, who then turn around and incorporate that cost into the price of their merchandise. In essance I have just helped to subsidize the cost of using that automobile. In a true market economy, the owners and operators of automobiles would bare all of the costs.

There are numerous other examples of how we have spread the costs of building the trappings of surburbia over all of society. And one could argue that we, as a society, made a decision to "invest" in this infrastructure in anticipation of future economic growth. But alas, that is not how a market economy should work. That leans more toward social economics, wich may or may not be a better idea, but that is a discussion for another forum.

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