Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Oh, and to the OP... annexation is no way to grow. Giving people reason to move in is. Lower taxes has always proven successful. If this were done, probably 1.2 million happy people in the ATL.
Atlanta needs to focus on urbanizing and developing the huge low density areas that are currently within the city limits. We already have way too much land that is low density and grossly underutilized.
Other cities with our physical size easily support much larger populations within the same area. For example:
-- Denver (630,000)
-- Portland (580,000)
-- Detroit (680,000)
-- Philadelphia (1,500,000)
-- Seattle (640,000)
The vast majority of the city's property taxes come from a handful of urbanized areas, while nearly 20-25% of the population is below the poverty line. We've got a few small sections struggling to support much larger thinly populated and underutilized areas.
Before the city starts thinking about adding even more low density, underutilized areas, it desperately needs to fix what it's already got.
Amen to much ^^^ @3:27!
Funny thing is that as I rode in this morning my mind was tackling the local problems we have that are exacerbated by the teeny, tiny city we have in the center of this huge metro area. I also was going through a list of similarly out-of-balance metros, for lack of a better term & I seem to have also come up with only Miami-Dade/H'wood-Ft. L, etc.
Miami maybe tiny as a city but there is a two-tiered Government in Miami Dade county:
Unlike a consolidated city-county, where the city and county governments merge into a single entity, these two entities remain separate. Instead there are two "tiers", or levels, of government: city and county. There are 35 municipalities in the county, the City of Miami being the largest.
Cities are the "lower tier" of local government, providing police and fire protection, zoning and code enforcement, and other typical city services within their jurisdiction. These services are paid for by city taxes.
The County is the "upper tier", and it provides services of a metropolitan nature, such as emergency management, airport and seaport operations, public housing and health care services, transportation, environmental services, solid waste disposal etc. These are funded by county taxes, which are assessed on all incorporated and unincorporated areas."
As for the out of balance metros I think there are close to 100 Incorporated cities in the tri county Miami metro yet we seem to work well on issues regarding mass transit.
Miami maybe tiny as a city but there is a two-tiered Government in Miami Dade county:
Unlike a consolidated city-county, where the city and county governments merge into a single entity, these two entities remain separate. Instead there are two "tiers", or levels, of government: city and county. There are 35 municipalities in the county, the City of Miami being the largest.
Cities are the "lower tier" of local government, providing police and fire protection, zoning and code enforcement, and other typical city services within their jurisdiction. These services are paid for by city taxes.
The County is the "upper tier", and it provides services of a metropolitan nature, such as emergency management, airport and seaport operations, public housing and health care services, transportation, environmental services, solid waste disposal etc. These are funded by county taxes, which are assessed on all incorporated and unincorporated areas."
As for the out of balance metros I think there are close to 100 Incorporated cities in the tri county Miami metro yet we seem to work well on issues regarding mass transit.
Doesn't Atlanta metro have twice the amount of stations and twice the amount of daily riders on our high-speed rail? With less population also. I do however envy the commuter rail, tri rail.
Doesn't Atlanta metro have twice the amount of stations and twice the amount of daily riders on our high-speed rail? With less population also. I do however envy the commuter rail, tri rail.
Well no city in the US has "high speed rail". What Miami & Atlanta have is "heavy rail" systems equal to the subways in NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc.
The only 2 cities in the entire South including Texas that have "heavy rail" systems.
Atlanta does have a larger heavy rail system than Miami's.
Atlanta has 48 miles versus 25 miles in Miami but we have a 4.8 mile elevated people mover downtown which is free that carries about 30,000 passengers a day.
Yes we do have Tri-Rail Commuter rail that starts in Jupiter and can take you into Miami and connect with Metrorail as well for a distance of over 70 miles.
Miami's Metrorail & Metro mover carries about 103,000 passengers a day but our bus system is insane with about 300,000 passengers a day and it runs in through Broward county and even the Florida Keys.
In addition we will have Sunrail Commuter rail in Orlando starting next year which is 67 miles as well. Georgia? Get on the ball!
...I am a native of Atlanta and it seems, according to these posts, that some of you want to penalize surrounding areas for nothing more than being...um....surrounding areas. What gives you people the right, (if this were reality), to tax people solely on geographical basis? Dunwoody? Vinings? Brookhaven? Druid Hills? Why do you ITPers want to tax these people to death?
Common goal??? I'm calling BS! Keep taxing and penalizing people and guess what you get? Mass exodus...
"Penalize?" Tax is not a penalty... Nor is an HOA a penalty for living in a neighborhood, or club membership dues. That's one fundamental problem I notice amongst many people in the South, especially so called conservatives. They think of tax as a punishment. When you've bought into that thought, you are never okay with a tax.
Tax is not synonymous with bad... OVER tax and wasteful spending of taxes are. But tax itself is not a penalty.
Even the Bible INSTRUCTS to PAY taxes... (Don't mean to go all religious and all, but the point here is that a lot of "conservatives" that hate tax so much also consider themselves "conservative Christians..." Not all. Just many... Just seems hypocritical to me when a so called "conservative Christian" kicks and screams about taxes, OR "their taxes paying for services in other nearby cities.. AKA, THY NEIGHBOR"). What Does the Bible Say About Paying Taxes?
Not calling boo radley a hypocrite, cause I have no idea if this describes boo r. Boo's post just led me to this thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by boo radley
Oh, and to the OP... annexation is no way to grow. Giving people reason to move in is. Lower taxes has always proven successful. If this were done, probably 1.2 million happy people in the ATL.
AGAIN...
This thread is NOT a suggestion on what Atlanta "should do" nor a suggestion on how to grow... I was only wondering what the population would be if this were what happened...
Lowering taxes may be a great idea.
Annexing more land is not a means to growth, and is not an opposite option to lowered taxes. HOWEVER, higher population could allow for lower taxes, but that's not the point here.
Annexing (again not the point of the thread, but.......) would ONLY tackle a different issue (NOT the inner city growth issue). It would tackle the issue of all the bickering and pissing matches between all the different municipalities around the area. For example... If unincorporated Cobb were INSIDE Atlanta's city limits, MARTA would (most likely) run to Cobb because that old back in the day vote that Cobb voted down would have never happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeP
But it's meaningless. Political boundaries are useless other than discussing issues directly related to said boundaries. That's why metro areas are discussed and why businesses use metro or similarly defined markets as "cities"
Also, bigger counties would not change Atlanta's boundaries.
Counties do not HAVE to be Boundaries...
Bronx County (Bronx), Queens County (Queens), Kings County (Brooklyn), Richmond County (Staten Island) and New York County (Manhattan) are 5 full counties all inside of one large city limit (New York City)...
Imagine Atlanta having all of unincorporated land that borders the city limits. Would include South Fulton, Norht Clayton, North DeKalb, East Cobb and South Gwinnett, all in Atlanta City. No more fighting about issues that were restricted by separate voting districts. If the money is there, and the ONE Atlanta vote passes, transit can span the ends of Atlanta's limits, into those counties.
Just like NYC, Atlanta could form a blanket that covers certain issues, but allow a smaller municipality inside the city (like New York's boroughs) to tackle more personal issues like school districts, voting districts and so on... Just by annexing land, doesn't HAVE to equal one large school district (that's just dumb), or doesn't HAVE to equal more or higher taxes (that's presumptuous, however probably an inevitable future, but presumptuous none the less).
I just wanted to know what the population would be with all that unincorporated land included... BUT, looks like this thread has opened an interesting dialogue (even though it was not the point).
It might be fun to imagine Atlanta annexing of these areas, but I highly doubt that the already incorporated cities of East Point, Decatur, College Park, Fairburn, Jonesboro, etc. would be interested in becoming part of Atlanta.
Miami maybe tiny as a city but there is a two-tiered Government in Miami Dade county:
Unlike a consolidated city-county, where the city and county governments merge into a single entity, these two entities remain separate. Instead there are two "tiers", or levels, of government: city and county. There are 35 municipalities in the county, the City of Miami being the largest.
Cities are the "lower tier" of local government, providing police and fire protection, zoning and code enforcement, and other typical city services within their jurisdiction. These services are paid for by city taxes. The County is the "upper tier", and it provides services of a metropolitan nature, such as emergency management, airport and seaport operations, public housing and health care services, transportation, environmental services, solid waste disposal etc. These are funded by county taxes, which are assessed on all incorporated and unincorporated areas."
As for the out of balance metros I think there are close to 100 Incorporated cities in the tri county Miami metro yet we seem to work well on issues regarding mass transit.
All of that is fine information, but I think that he was simply referring to the fact that the city population of Miami is very small in comparison to the MSA...much like Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and of course Atlanta. I don't think it was meant as anything disparaging to Miami.
It might be fun to imagine Atlanta annexing of these areas, but I highly doubt that the already incorporated cities of East Point, Decatur, College Park, Fairburn, Jonesboro, etc. would be interested in becoming part of Atlanta.
Maybe not yet but when Atlanta keeps improving in every type of quality of life factor it might be a different story. Similar to the requests of annexation from the City of Decatur's neighbors.
"Penalize?" Tax is not a penalty... Nor is an HOA a penalty for living in a neighborhood, or club membership dues. That's one fundamental problem I notice amongst many people in the South, especially so called conservatives. They think of tax as a punishment. When you've bought into that thought, you are never okay with a tax.
Tax is not synonymous with bad... OVER tax and wasteful spending of taxes are. But tax itself is not a penalty.
Even the Bible INSTRUCTS to PAY taxes... (Don't mean to go all religious and all, but the point here is that a lot of "conservatives" that hate tax so much also consider themselves "conservative Christians..." Not all. Just many... Just seems hypocritical to me when a so called "conservative Christian" kicks and screams about taxes, OR "their taxes paying for services in other nearby cities.. AKA, THY NEIGHBOR"). What Does the Bible Say About Paying Taxes?
Not calling boo radley a hypocrite, cause I have no idea if this describes boo r. Boo's post just led me to this thought.
It's not just that Southerners think of taxes as a form of penalty or punishment.
It's also that most Southerners, who have a very-strong libertarian streak, also think that more taxes grows the size of government and gives government too much power and control over peoples' individual lives.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psykomonkee
Lowering taxes may be a great idea.
Annexing more land is not a means to growth, and is not an opposite option to lowered taxes. HOWEVER, higher population could allow for lower taxes, but that's not the point here.
Annexing (again not the point of the thread, but.......) would ONLY tackle a different issue (NOT the inner city growth issue). It would tackle the issue of all the bickering and pissing matches between all the different municipalities around the area. For example... If unincorporated Cobb were INSIDE Atlanta's city limits, MARTA would (most likely) run to Cobb because that old back in the day vote that Cobb voted down would have never happened.
You make some good arguments for annexation.
However, one of the major reasons why the City of Atlanta has not made any truly significant annexations in over 60 years (since 1952) is because neither the liberal blacks and whites who have dominated the political scene within the City of Atlanta, nor the conservative whites who have dominated the political scene in the suburbs outside of the City of Atlanta desired to share political power with each other in the post-Civil Rights era when the COA was predominantly black and very-liberal and the suburbs were predominantly white and very-conservative.
There were a few politically-moderate white business interests who were interested in annexing outlying areas outside of the COA before about 1974 when Maynard Jackson's election as mayor signaled the arrival to power over city government of Atlanta's black and liberal political elite.
After about that time when blacks and liberals took firm control of Atlanta's city government, there was virtually no interest from the black and liberal-controlled city government of annexing predominantly-white and conservative outlying areas for fear that annexing those areas would dilute the then-ascending power of Atlanta's black and liberal elites.
Some politically-moderate white business interests (primarily in Buckhead) continued to harbor thoughts of annexing outlying areas (like Sandy Springs, etc) as a means of growing Atlanta's tax base and overall political clout (particularly at the statewide level where anti-Atlanta politics often reigned supreme by way of a predominantly rural and agricultural South Georgia-dominated statewide political scene), but politically-conservative residents and political interests (powerful county governments) in those outlying areas would have none of it.
One result of that effort to prevent the City of Atlanta from annexing outlying areas was the creation of the City of Chattahoochee Plantation, which was incorporated in 1961 as a way to intentionally totally prevent the City of Atlanta from potentially annexing any part of Cobb County.
With middle-class and affluent white residents fleeing the City of Atlanta in droves for outlying suburban areas like Cobb County in the late 1950's and early 1960's, Cobb County residents and political interests were worried that the then-still (increasingly-less) predominantly-white City of Atlanta would annex large chunks of Cobb County as a means of keeping the tax revenue and votes of those fleeing whites within the corporate limits of the City of Atlanta.
To keep the then-increasingly less-predominantly-white City of Atlanta from potentially annexing any part of Cobb County, the affluent residents in Southeast Cobb County created the City of Chattahoochee Hills by incorporating the entire strip of land along the Chattahoochee River in Cobb County that was across from the City of Atlanta.
In many cases, because of the resistance to COA annexation by outlying areas, the City of Atlanta could not have annexed any outlying neighboring areas even if they would have wanted to, which they definitely did not want to after about 1974 when black and liberal political elites took control of city government and did not want to do anything to relinquish control of the political power that they had just recently gained as a result of the heavy flight of conservative middle-class and affluent whites to outlying suburban areas like Cobb County, the Sandy Springs area of North Fulton, etc.
With the majority black and liberal City of Atlanta and outlying majority white and conservative areas like Cobb County having sharply-different political and cultural interests, there was never going to be any chance of an outlying area like predominantly-white and ultraconservative Cobb County being incorporated into the predominantly-black, ultra-liberal and moderate City of Atlanta...
...And there was especially never going to be any chance of legendarily ultraconservative anti-transit Cobb County interests permitting the extension of transit of any kind from a then very high-crime City of Atlanta (...the City of Atlanta had some of the absolute highest homicide rates of any major city in the nation from the late 1960's until the mid 1980's).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psykomonkee
Counties do not HAVE to be Boundaries...
Bronx County (Bronx), Queens County (Queens), Kings County (Brooklyn), Richmond County (Staten Island) and New York County (Manhattan) are 5 full counties all inside of one large city limit (New York City)...
Imagine Atlanta having all of unincorporated land that borders the city limits. Would include South Fulton, Norht Clayton, North DeKalb, East Cobb and South Gwinnett, all in Atlanta City. No more fighting about issues that were restricted by separate voting districts. If the money is there, and the ONE Atlanta vote passes, transit can span the ends of Atlanta's limits, into those counties.
Just like NYC, Atlanta could form a blanket that covers certain issues, but allow a smaller municipality inside the city (like New York's boroughs) to tackle more personal issues like school districts, voting districts and so on... Just by annexing land, doesn't HAVE to equal one large school district (that's just dumb), or doesn't HAVE to equal more or higher taxes (that's presumptuous, however probably an inevitable future, but presumptuous none the less).
The problem with that scenario is that, with few exceptions, most of those outlying unincorporated areas that you named don't really have much, if any, of a desire to be incorporated into the City of Atlanta, and the City of Atlanta does not really have much of a desire to incorporate most of those outlying unincorporated areas.
Almost all of those outlying unincorporated suburban areas have their own unique individual political (and cultural and social) agendas that are not necessarily all that compatible with the unique political, cultural and social agendas of the City of Atlanta.
As we've seen with the continuing issues some of the local public school systems in recent years, bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to governance.
In some targeted cases, a City of Atlanta annexation can and would likely work very well for all parties involved, but in most cases annexation should not and cannot be considered a one-size-fits-all solution for governance in a metro region as large and as complex as Atlanta.
In fact, what might work better is to go the other way with smaller cities and townships (a "city-lite" form of government as some call it) and a more localized form of governance for local areas, with state government properly fulfilling its constitutionally-mandated role of better managing an inter-county multimodal transportation network for the Atlanta region.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
