We will continue to be the leader in this and lead people out of Atlanta and into a better future here in Alpharetta.” (Jackson: low crime, credit)

[Atlanta Scientist]

Alpharetta and Forsyth County officials are asking the General Assembly to designate a section of Ga. 400 as the “Technology Corridor.”

If approved, signs along 14 miles of the state highway would identify the two communities as established hubs for professional technology, Alpharetta City Administrator Bob Regus said.

”I just think this is great as Forsyth County begins its infancy into technology,” Mitchell said. “We will continue to be the leader in this and lead people out of Atlanta and into a better future here in Alpharetta.”

I've never been to Alpharetta or Forsyth but I'm less inclined to if these are the reps of these place. But I shouldn't be surprised since the push to divide and destroy the city of Atlanta is coming from people outside of Buckehad and Atlanta proper. Atlanta delegation to lobby to have the city designated the cultural, technological, social, political, and economic capital of Georgia. Alpharetta and Forsyth are only what they are because of the successes of the Atlanta metro.

[ronricks]

Seems the answer to this would be for city of Atlanta to have better leadership. Is that too much to ask? It's going to take a lot to undo Bottoms 4 years as Mayor. We were doing just fine until she came along.

[Born 2 Roll]

Here are some links to the story quoted in the original post:

Alpharetta, Forsyth County seek Ga. 400 ‘Technology Corridor’ (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) (PAYWALL)

Alpharetta, Forsyth County seek Ga. 400 ‘Technology Corridor’ (Infodig)

[Atlanta Scientist]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Here is are some links to the story quoted in the original post:

Alpharetta, Forsyth County seek Ga. 400 ‘Technology Corridor’ (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) (PAYWALL)

Alpharetta, Forsyth County seek Ga. 400 ‘Technology Corridor’ (Infodig)

Thanks B2R. I forgot to link.

[ATLHRLGUY]

Seriously Don (Mitchell), no reason to take the jab at Atlanta. Bashing Atlanta is getting very old. I want the region to grow. Luckily city leadership (Atlanta) throughout the decades and the business community have worked together to help the entire region grow despite mindsets like Mitchell's.

Originally Posted by Atlanta Scientist

I've never been to Alpharetta or Forsyth but I'm less inclined to if these are the reps of these place. But I shouldn't be surprised since the push to divide and destroy the city of Atlanta is coming from people outside of Buckehad and Atlanta proper. Atlanta delegation to lobby to have the city designated the cultural, technological, social, political, and economic capital of Georgia. Alpharetta and Forsyth are only what they are because of the successes of the Atlanta metro.

Travel up there one weekend, at least check out Avalon, nice area.

[Atlanta Scientist]

Originally Posted by ronricks

Seems the answer to this would be for city of Atlanta to have better leadership. Is that too much to ask? It's going to take a lot to undo Bottoms 4 years as Mayor. We were doing just fine until she came along.

We're not doing that bad. We're attracting companies, jobs, and people. We need to get a handle on crime and fix infrastructure. None of that is unique to Atlanta. With fresh leadership, Atlanta has better times ahead. Alpharetta will always be Atlanta when these people travel abroad no matter how much they want to discount the City.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by ronricks

Seems the answer to this would be for city of Atlanta to have better leadership. Is that too much to ask? It's going to take a lot to undo Bottoms 4 years as Mayor. We were doing just fine until she came along.

Alpharetta City Councilman Donald Mitchell’s statement isn’t about Keisha Lance Bottoms’ disappointing single term as mayor of the City of Atlanta.

Which, even with its notable challenges and even with Bottoms’ deficiencies as mayor, the City of Atlanta continues to perform extremely well economically in attracting new business (including tech businesses) and is slated to become home to the East Coast headquarters campus of technology behemoth Microsoft.

Mitchell’s statement about “leading people out of Atlanta into a better future in Alpharetta” is just yet more Northside suburbs vs. city culture war rhetoric that is part of a narrow and misguided zero-sum mindset that any success that suburbs like Alpharetta experience has to come at the expense of the urban core (the City of Atlanta).

It’s a very unfortunate and extremely misguided and very ill-informed mindset because (as Atlanta Scientist noted) suburban communities like Alpharetta and Forsyth County are only what they are because of the successes of the Atlanta metro as a whole.

Alpharetta and Forsyth County likely wouldn’t even be viable places to live, work and play if it weren’t for the massive financial investment that the municipal government of the urban core (the City of Atlanta) had made in constantly growing Hartsfield-Jackson Airport from a single air strip on the site of an abandoned race track into the world’s busiest airport over the last 96 years.

And Alpharetta and Forsyth County (which were largely extremely socially isolated and impoverished rural areas before they became part of metro Atlanta) probably most likely would not be viable places to live, work and play if the civic leaders in the City of Atlanta (like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Mayor Ivan Allen, etc.) had not signaled to the rest of the world that Atlanta was ‘The city too busy to hate’ and was a good and favorable place to do business in an otherwise largely undesirable Southeastern region at the time.

The economic and social successes that suburbs like Alpharetta and Forsyth County are enjoying right now are because of the wise decisions and investments that ATLANTA leaders made for the region’s future in the past.

[JMatl]

^Excellent post and remarks, B2R!

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Atlanta Scientist

I've never been to Alpharetta or Forsyth but I'm less inclined to if these are the reps of these place. But I shouldn't be surprised since the push to divide and destroy the city of Atlanta is coming from people outside of Buckehad and Atlanta proper. Atlanta delegation to lobby to have the city designated the cultural, technological, social, political, and economic capital of Georgia. Alpharetta and Forsyth are only what they are because of the successes of the Atlanta metro.

Originally Posted by ATLHRLGUY

Seriously Don (Mitchell), no reason to take the jab at Atlanta. Bashing Atlanta is getting very old. I want the region to grow. Luckily city leadership (Atlanta) throughout the decades and the business community have worked together to help the entire region grow despite mindsets like Mitchell's.

Originally Posted by Atlanta Scientist

We're not doing that bad. We're attracting companies, jobs, and people. We need to get a handle on crime and fix infrastructure. None of that is unique to Atlanta. With fresh leadership, Atlanta has better times ahead. Alpharetta will always be Atlanta when these people travel abroad no matter how much they want to discount the City.

This... All of this.

Alpharetta doesn’t exist in a vacuum, isolated as a metropolitan area unto itself.

While it undeniably is continues to become even more of a key community in the metro area, Alpharetta is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

It’s not metro Alpharetta. It’s metro Atlanta.

Without the City of Atlanta and the dominant large major metropolitan area that it has spawned, Alpharetta likely is nothing.

Heck, Alpharetta and North Fulton County (then-Milton County) went bankrupt during the Great Depression of the 1930’s and had to merge with Fulton County.

And there definitely are many of us who are old enough to remember when now-affluent, upscale and trendsetting Alpharetta was still a rural and exurban agricultural community that was considered a less-than-desirable place to be for people who didn’t live in the area.

Heck, there are many of us who old enough to remember when Forsyth County (which the Alpharetta mailing area expands into) was a place that most people (particularly people of color) did not want to venture into during daylight hours, much less be caught in after dark.

So to act like Alpharetta has achieved this success all on its own without any help or influence from Atlanta is very disingenuous and is very ill-informed.

[ronricks]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Alpharetta City Councilman Donald Mitchell’s statement isn’t about Keisha Lance Bottoms’ disappointing single term as mayor of the City of Atlanta.

Which, even with its notable challenges and even with Bottoms’ deficiencies as mayor, the City of Atlanta continues to perform extremely well economically in attracting new business (including tech businesses) and is slated to become home to the East Coast headquarters campus of technology behemoth Microsoft.

Mitchell’s statement about “leading people out of Atlanta into a better future in Alpharetta” is just yet more Northside suburbs vs. city culture war rhetoric that is part of a narrow and misguided zero-sum mindset that any success that suburbs like Alpharetta experience has to come at the expense of the urban core (the City of Atlanta).

It’s a very unfortunate and extremely misguided and very ill-informed mindset because (as Atlanta Scientist noted) suburban communities like Alpharetta and Forsyth County are only what they are because of the successes of the Atlanta metro as a whole.

Alpharetta and Forsyth County likely wouldn’t even be viable places to live, work and play if it weren’t for the massive financial investment that the municipal government of the urban core (the City of Atlanta) had made in constantly growing Hartsfield-Jackson Airport from a single air strip on the site of an abandoned race track into the world’s busiest airport over the last 96 years.

And Alpharetta and Forsyth County (which were largely extremely socially isolated and impoverished rural areas before they became part of metro Atlanta) probably most likely would not be viable places to live, work and play if the civic leaders in the City of Atlanta (like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Mayor Ivan Allen, etc.) had not signaled to the rest of the world that Atlanta was ‘The city too busy to hate’ and was a good and favorable place to do business in an otherwise largely undesirable Southeastern region at the time.

The economic and social successes that suburbs like Alpharetta and Forsyth County are enjoying right now are because of the wise decisions and investments that ATLANTA leaders made for the region’s future in the past.

History actually paints a very different picture. The reason places like Alpharetta exists is because people fled a crumbling city of Atlanta that was beginning to exhibit poor infrastructure, poor services, poor schools, high property taxes, high crime, and business leaving and was being mismanaged by ineffective leadership. When Dr King was assassinated in 1968 the city of Atlanta was already starting to see a mass exodus because of the things I just listed. Atlantan's were able to move out to places like Alpharetta that had far bigger homes and yards with lower property taxes, great schools, great services and infrastructure and low crime. Lets also not forget GA 400 which cut through many majority white neighborhoods making people lose their homes and having to move elsewhere. Alpharetta is a technological hub and will continue to be. Other than the airport (which as the Atlanta metro continues to grow there will be one built on the northside eventually population will force this to happen) there will be no reason for anyone living in Alpharetta to go south of there. They seem to be doing a fine job on their own with development. You really can't give any credit to Ivan Allen for something like the Avalon development. That's very dishonest. You have to give credit to the local leadership. Ivan Allen and mayors after him didn't build Alpharetta. City of Atlanta ineptitude is actually what forced people and businesses to make choices to go out there in the first place. Alpharetta and Forsyth County are also very diverse maybe even more so than the city of Atlanta.