City of Vista Grove: Here We Go Again (Atlanta, Roswell: real estate, city hall)

[seussie]

Vista Grove's 58k pales in comparison to Greenhaven's 300k.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by seussie

Vista Grove's 58k pales in comparison to Greenhaven's 300k.

Yeah, because Greenhaven would extend from the farthest western to the farthest eastern points of DeKalb. All the way from Moreland Ave, to the Gwinnett County border. Would include Stone Mountain Park, and Gresham Park.

What a joke. I'm sorry, that is just simply not a city.

[seussie]

Yeah! And unfortunately it might become one.

But to respond to the topic: I really wonder how this is affecting Dekalb County Schools now, in 5 and in 10 years. I think Dekalb Commissioners spoke on suing Atlanta for not upholding leaving 2mil in tax money that’d follow a handful of students in the Emory annexation.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Also the sections of far-eastern Cobb that have a Roswell address, should join Roswell.

...

Bringing this back to Vista Grove, little different, as that whole area has an Atlanta address, but doesn't belong in City of Atlanta. Too suburban in character and far away from the core. So at least one new city makes sense, but does all of that large area need to be in the same city?

I think Tucker should get all the OTP and Vista Grove should get all the ITP. And the LaVista Park/Woodland Hills area should annex into Atlanta, along with the rest of that whole Druid Hills area. Medlock Park/North Decatur area should be allowed to join City of Decatur. And Scottdale should probably be a new city.

The far-eastern and far-eastern part of East Cobb with the Roswell address would be in Shallowford Heights (or Shallowford Forest depending on what sounds better).


As for the proposed Vista Grove, I would have most of it annexed by Atlanta. Other parts would be annexed by Tucker, Doraville, and Chamblee.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by primaltech

I don't oppose incorporations and annexations, but it just creates a total silliness as a result. Maps make no sense now.

City of Lithonia for example, is just a tiny circle. With a population of only like 2,000 people. But everything around there for miles has Lithonia identity/history, Lithonia address, roads and things named after Lithonia. But now it's all the City of Stonecrest. Which is just a shopping mall that was built in the 21st century.

I don't understand why tiny Lithonia and massive Stonecrest couldn't have come together and merged into one thing, and called it Lithonia. Then it would have an actual historic downtown, and some identity and history. And postal address would match.

That's just one example of many. South Fulton is a total complete mind-boggling mess. Greenhaven proposal is ridiculous. Even this city of Vista Grove makes sense for the area around LaVista and Oak Grove, but does it need to include far way OTP areas at Pleasantdale Rd, that are right next to Tucker?

I'm glad incorporation madness hasn't hit Cobb, and I hope it doesn't, but if it does then I hope things are gone about logically, and there's some kind of sensible overall plan.

Like I would actually be totally fine with a Marietta-Cobb city-county consolidation. With everything just becoming a neighborhood of Marietta.

I can see why a mostly unincorporated county is maybe not ideal, if most people don't live in the few cities, and don't get sufficient levels of services and whatnot. But I also don't see how tons of cities is the most ideal way of doing it either.

The areas near Tucker had just about the highest yes votes for LaVista Hills. Tucker doesn't have police service. They rely on the county. And that area is zoned to Lakeside HS, so they have close ties to the areas inside the loop.

I agree fully about South Fulton and Greenhaven. And I also don't understand why Stonecrest and Lithonia couldn't have come to an agreement.

[arjay57]

I am okay with it.

[Big L]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Here is a map of the total area that has an Atlanta address/zip code (or at least optionally valid):

https://www.zip-codes.com/city/ga-atlanta.asp

It extends into all 5 of the core counties, with even a little bit in Gwinnett.

If that were the city limits, Atlanta would have about 1 million residents.

With regards to this, what is interesting is that if you look on the USPS website, the default name for every zip code in both Dunwoody and Sandy Springs is still "Atlanta". I work within the Dunwoody city limits, but even our company still has "Atlanta" on all of our correspondence.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by Big L

With regards to this, what is interesting is that if you look on the USPS website, the default name for every zip code in both Dunwoody and Sandy Springs is still "Atlanta". I work within the Dunwoody city limits, but even our company still has "Atlanta" on all of our correspondence.

Why not, if they can get the prominence of having an Atlanta zip code without paying the business taxes.

[David1502]

Originally Posted by Big L

With regards to this, what is interesting is that if you look on the USPS website, the default name for every zip code in both Dunwoody and Sandy Springs is still "Atlanta". I work within the Dunwoody city limits, but even our company still has "Atlanta" on all of our correspondence.

The decision to have Atlanta as the name for all of the zip code areas of Sandy Springs and Dunwoody was made probably back in the 1950's by a postmaster in the area. This was long before there was any discussion of making both Sandy Springs and Dunwoody municipalities. The first talk of incorporating the area we now know as Sandy Springs into a city began around 1965 when Atlanta's Mayor William Hartsfield indicated he his desire to annex Sandy Springs (It was an effort to maintain a white majority in the City of Atlanta - this is discussed in the book "Whit Flight Atlanta by Kevin Kruse). Therefore, since there were no cities in that area, the decision was made to give the name to the closest incorporated city which was the City of Atlanta.


Another interesting story about city names for zip codes is that the present Cumberland/Galleria area could presently have Smyrna as their mailing address, if not for a decision by the Smyrna City Council in the early 1970's. When they were about to build Cumberland Mall, the developers contacted the Smyrna City Council and requested that their land be annexed into Smyrna because they wanted Smyrna Police/Fire protection as well as to be on the Smyrna sewer line. The Smyrna City Council voted no and as a result missed out on a windfall of property taxes. The Cumberland Mall developers then asked the Postmaster if he would create a new zip code - which he did and thus the Atlanta 30339 zip code was formed - this zip code extends to Windy Hill Rd. in the north and Powers Ferry to the east (The Wildwood Office Complex was added to it) and the Home Depot headquarters land was added to it in the early 1990's.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Why not, if they can get the prominence of having an Atlanta zip code without paying the business taxes.

There was a time when some people and businesses would have paid extra NOT to have an Atlanta address.