Cobb and Gwinnett join MARTA July 1

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by demonta4

I.doubt anyone would ride MARTA to rob you. I would be more afraid of all the people in cars.

Virtually all robbers, thieves and burglars use cars. If you want to head them off, the best thing is to increase the intensity of traffic enforcement. Ask any LE officer.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by JoeP

And sadly at least one Cobb official specically called out MARTA and basically said that it won't happen. And what I mean is that he (and one can assume others) will still oppose MARTA because to them it's about as they said years ago... stopping "Atlanta" at the river wink wink.

The thing that everyone needs to understand about Cobb County officials is that they are really good at engaging in double-speak to the shrinking but still very-powerful ultraconservative voters who still dominate the county's electorate but no-longer dominate the county's population.

If Cobb County officials were really serious about "stopping Atlanta at the river" they wouldn't have permitted the construction of EVERY new real estate development that was put in front of them over the last 40 years.

Cobb County officials have been notorious for telling the county's electorate of aging conservative white voters that they want to "stop Atlanta at the river" and then turning around and openly encouraging the overbuilding and overdevelopment of every square inch of the county while making not-so-secret plans to try and get MARTA-style rail transit into the county.

Cobb County doesn't want to "stop Atlanta at the river", Cobb County wants to be Atlanta.

Originally Posted by JoeP

I too, fear someone riding a train to a stop near my house... robbing me.... and then taking it all back to the city on MARTA....

I know that you are being sarcastic with this comment, but for the people who do actually think that way...

...With the poverty level in Cobb County being at about 12% and rising, there's a very-good chance that much of the crime occurring in Cobb County is being committed by people who live in Cobb County, where there is no shortage of lower-cost housing these days.

But even the Cobb County crimes that are committed by people that are not from Cobb County are most likely committed by people who simply use any one of multiple major roads (I-75, I-285, I-20, US 41, GA 280, GA 139, Atlanta Road, Bankhead Highway, etc) to drive into the county in personal automobiles.

Though, I guess that it is worth noting that at the time that MARTA was first proposed and voted on back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, crime was notoriously-high within the City of Atlanta as the city was at the time home to the nation's largest cluster of crime-ridden public housing projects east of the Mississippi and south of Washington D.C.

That means that suburbanites' fears of Atlanta's then very-severe crime problem (worse than today) spreading to outside of a then much more crime-ridden City of Atlanta were not necessarily as irrational as they might seem to many today.

Though, it should also be noted that at the time, Cobb County was the top destination of middle-class white residents seeking to move out of an increasingly black-dominated City of Atlanta in the post-Civil Rights era as part of the "White-Flight" movement to the suburbs that was going on in major cities all across the country.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Though, it should also be noted that at the time, Cobb County was the top destination of middle-class white residents seeking to move out of an increasingly black-dominated City of Atlanta in the post-Civil Rights era as part of the "White-Flight" movement to the suburbs that was going on in major cities all across the country.

A lot of white folks moved out to DeKalb as well. I'm thinking it may have been a bigger destination than Cobb.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by arjay57

A lot of white folks moved out to DeKalb as well. I'm thinking it may have been a bigger destination than Cobb.

That's a good point, though unlike Cobb County, DeKalb County joined (and embraced membership in) MARTA early-on.

DeKalb County has also seemingly overwhelmingly embraced a very-close and direct relationship with the City of Atlanta and Fulton County while Cobb County has often had an adversarial and even antagonistic relationship with the City of Atlanta and Fulton County.

[AcidSnake]

What you brought up...is the one aspect I will never get about the conservative-minded suburbanites/exurbanites.

If they really hate Atlanta so much, why do they keep electing and re-electing politicians who all but guarantee that Atlanta's uncontrolled growth will visit their doorsteps eventually?

You would think that they actually encourage more denser compact dvelopments in Atlanta proper as a buffer against uncontrolled unrestrained development following them county by county.

I've even argued with some on here about this matter. But for the life of me, I could never get a precise answer from those folks on this issue. They seem unwilling and/or incapable of getting beyond some ill-defined blind rage to acknowledge this inconsistency.

Do they(the conservative suburban/exurban voters) simply vote according to the superficial dogwhistle of crime and "keep those people out" and that's it?

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

The thing that everyone needs to understand about Cobb County officials is that they are really good at engaging in double-speak to the shrinking but still very-powerful ultraconservative voters who still dominate the county's electorate but no-longer dominate the county's population.

If Cobb County officials were really serious about "stopping Atlanta at the river" they wouldn't have permitted the construction of EVERY new real estate development that was put in front of them over the last 40 years.

Cobb County officials have been notorious for telling the county's electorate of aging conservative white voters that they want to "stop Atlanta at the river" and then turning around and openly encouraging the overbuilding and overdevelopment of every square inch of the county while making not-so-secret plans to try and get MARTA-style rail transit into the county.

Cobb County doesn't want to "stop Atlanta at the river", Cobb County wants to be Atlanta.