One Southside City Idea Loses Steam

[ironchapman]

Check out this article from the AJC:

One Southside City Idea Loses Steam

more than 30,000 acres of rolling countryside, is all but dead, a handful of residents and local leaders decided Thursday night.

A straw ballot among 150 residents, community activists and landowners found support for the proposed city, which had been discussed for more than two years, had eroded.

Now, the community will try to be annexed into the neighboring city of Palmetto.

So, what do you guys think? Would this be considered a good or bad thing for south Fulton?

I was kind of drawn to this article because of all the talk in north Fulton about forming new cities. However, even though the city won't be formed, there is a good chance that it wil now be annexed by Palmetto (or so they hope).

[Lady Celeste]

So, what do you guys think? Would this be considered a good or bad thing for south Fulton?

I think this decision has no bearing over south Fulton at all. I don't consider it either way.

As to the decision itself, I think it was the right decision. Running a city is not easy. especially when you ahve become accustomed to a certain level of service. Honestly, I think that Sandy Springs was the really most viable city formed or to be formed. When you have a city that is majority residential...ie Milton, Johns Creek...you will have to raise taxes immensely to offset the lost of revenue for commercial and industrial sources.

This areas of south Fulton has almost always wanted to remain a "rural" oasis in the midst of a densifying metro. While going alone would have almost surely encouraged low or minimal development, it would have been quite difficult to run without either raising taxes and lowering services. Palmetto seems to have stopped in time. While there is growth there, it seems that most of the steam skipped it for Newnan. The northern part of south Fulton...which is probably it's most affluent and has the most commercial development...stands a better chance at going it alone. They still have Camp Creek Pkwy and South Fulton Pkwy to develop for high density commercial purposes. One only has to look at the success of CampCreek Market Place.

While I don't think that the extreme southern portion wanted that type of growth, with positive and thoughtful planning, all the mega growth could be kept to the larger corridors and this area could have remained semi-rural. Palmetto is not the most forward thinking of cities. Having said that, I have been told that the offer for annexation by Atlanta has been met with lukewarm reception. I feel that all of south Fulton should be given the option to merge into the city of Atlanta. This is not for population purposes...although it helps because some of the fastest growing areas of the metro happen to be in south Fulton. I feel an annexation would be better because the metro needs less bureaucracy not more.

If we are to have metro wide cooperation, having to deal with 50 million jurisdictions is going to make it that much harder. Too bad we can't merge counties....I would send Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett off to get merged and I would send Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas and Paulding to the merger chapel and Fayette, Coweta, Clayton and Henry would have to go to the chapel.

Anyway, I think we may see yet another city next year....now it's just one less than what we were thinking.

[Andrea]

If we are to have metro wide cooperation, having to deal with 50 million jurisdictions is going to make it that much harder. Too bad we can't merge counties....I would send Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett off to get merged and I would send Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas and Paulding to the merger chapel and Fayette, Coweta, Clayton and Henry would have to go to the chapel.

Celeste, I had no idea you were a promoter of poly-county relationships!

Seriously, I completely agree. One reason the City of DeKalb proposal has always held some attraction is that it might head off some of the Balkanization we're seeing around here.