Is north fulton still trying to break away? (Atlanta, Roswell: sales, city hall)

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by rswlguy

Huh? The entire Cobb County population is approximately 700,000 people. Where are the rest of them? If you add up all the major cities in Cobb County (Marietta, Smyrna, Acworth, Kennesaw, Powder Springs) ...that's about 147,000 residents. Combined with your total for NE Cobb of 150,000 that equals 297,000 residents. Where are the rest of the population accounted for? (roughly 379k?) Let me know if you find out? That's a lot of people missing!

Most of Cobb County is suburban but unincorporated. If I may pull out my map of Cobb County again, check out the white areas. Those are all unincorporated areas (only the yellow areas are incorporated cities), and yet most of that area is filled with houses. Houses = people.

http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner/CobbCounty8.GIF (broken link)

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

FWIW, it would surprise me if East Cobb contained much more than 1/3 of the total Cobb County population.

RC, this question was thoroughly explored by GF72 in post #24, just above. Here's a small excerpt from the conclusion:

Originally Posted by GF72

So if East Cobb were to incorporate, the population would be around 100k.... about the same as Sandy Springs and in the top 10 in GA by population, but definitely not the largest.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

RC, this question was thoroughly explored by GF72 in post #24, just above. Here's a small excerpt from the conclusion:

Yeah, I didn't realize there was more to the thread until after I'd posted.

[GF72]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Yeah, I didn't realize there was more to the thread until after I'd posted.

nice map though, it's good to have a well-labeled county map, considering the official ones don't have unincorporated area labels like East Cobb and Cumberland.

[GF72]

Going back to the article about Milton County, it mentions that if the county were formed it would be the richest in GA and one of the richest in the country.

So I did some research on north Fulton's numbers. Since no one posts numbers on just north Fulton, and since Milton and Johns Creek don't have solid numbers yet, I had to do it by zip codes. So these are the zip codes in north Fulton, with their populations and average household income:

30004 57,435 $99,412 (Milton/Alpharetta)
30005 31,743 $128,363 (Alpharetta/Johns Creek)
30022 66,688 $132,096 (Alpharetta/Johns Creek)
30097 35,730 $136,896 (Johns Creek)
30075 54,324 $115,088 (Roswell)
30076 46,602 $94,006 (Roswell)
30350 37,280 $91,674 (Sandy Springs)
30328 30,045 $113,526 (Sandy Springs)
30327 26,250 $209,354 (Sandy Springs)
30342 30,528 $104,682 (Sandy Springs)

This brings the total population for the area to 416,625 and the average household income to $119,036. (to get the income you can't just average, you have to use percentages).

Some of these zip codes spill over into East Cobb, Buckhead, and Duluth, so the real population is actually about 350,000. It's impossible to know how much the average income would change, but I would say not much or at all, looking at the main spillover zip codes.

According to Forbes (data from US Census Bureau), the three wealthiest counties are all suburbs of DC: Fairfax County, VA, Loudoun County, VA, and Howard County, MD, with median household incomes of $100,318, $99,371, and $94,260 respectively. Only Fairfax has a bigger population than what Milton County would have.

These are median incomes, so I went to US Census Bureau to look up average household incomes, which are:

Loudoun County, VA: $118,442
Fairfax County, VA: $125,213
Howard County, MD: $112,423

So with Milton County at $119,036 it would actually be the second richest county in the country. Of course, the true number will be slightly different because of the zip code spillover, so it might actually the richest. Either way it looks like the article was actually right.

The current richest county in GA is Forsyth with an average household income of $92,472. Fayette is second with almost exactly the same income, though both these counties combined have less population than Milton would. Fulton's is currently about $87,000 and I'm guessing would plummet if Milton was formed. Cobb is about $80,000 and Gwinnett is $76,000. The United States is $65,000.

[Georgia]

On the radio yesterday AM750 News that Buckhead is now trying to form it's own city so not to be affiliated or tied to Atlanta City. Only issue is another Buckhead incorporated town exists in Georgia.
So, N. Fulton is still trying to be Milton, Buckhead is trying to succeed from the Atlanta union, etc.

So much for all this Atlanta resurgence propaganda.

Think it's time the voters of Fulton and the City of Atlanta try to clean out the house.

[GF72]

Originally Posted by Georgia

On the radio yesterday AM750 News that Buckhead is now trying to form it's own city so not to be affiliated or tied to Atlanta City. Only issue is another Buckhead incorporated town exists in Georgia.
So, N. Fulton is still trying to be Milton, Buckhead is trying to succeed from the Atlanta union, etc.

So much for all this Atlanta resurgence propaganda.

Think it's time the voters of Fulton and the City of Atlanta try to clean out the house.

If Buckhead manages to break free of Atlanta before Milton, I'm guessing it would join in on the Milton County bandwagon.

However, Buckhead actually breaking free will be pretty difficult. As for the naming thing... the existing Buckhead is a tiny, poor little town. Maybe all it would take to convince them to change their name is some... donations...

The Buckhead secession was proposed by the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation in July. The biggest hurdle to overcome would be convincing the people that need to sign on (including the Governor) that Buckhead seceding won't bankrupt Atlanta. However, Buckhead provides almost 50% of the cities taxes, and the GPD is $72 billion, which is higher than most countries, so they'll have a tough time.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by GF72

I live in East Cobb and know the demographics of Atlanta well.

Firstly, yes, Cobb's population is around 700k. However, around 70% of Cobb is unincorporated... so if you are wondering where the rest of the population is, after you add up the incorporated cities and East Cobb, well... they are in the rest of unincorporated Cobb. Don't forget that West Cobb, North Cobb, Cumberland, etc are all unincorporated....

As for the population of East Cobb... the entire northeast quadrant of Cobb county, as used in the 2000 census, is around 150k people. However, if East Cobb were to incorporate, it would be much smaller. East Cobb "proper" is basically the Walton, Pope, and Lassiter high school districts, plus a little bit of the Sprayberry district and maybe half of the wheeler district. The population of this area (the area that most actually consider East Cobb) is about 100,000 from the 2000 census (which I got from adding up every sub-segment of the county that falls within the area), and that number hasn't really gone up in the past 8 years, especially not the core part of East Cobb (Johnson Ferry and Roswell Road).

So if East Cobb were to incorporate, the population would be around 100k.... about the same as Sandy Springs and in the top 10 in GA by population, but definitely not the largest.


However, as an East Cobb resident, there is absolutely no legitimate reason to incorporate. East Cobb residents get the best of everything... low taxes, great schools, no municipal taxes, and a county government that does everything just fine. Incorporating would simply introduce a layer of government that simply isn't needed...

If the US Post Office would just give us East Cobb, GA addresses instead of Marietta (or Roswell, for some), I'm pretty sure there would be almost no one left who would want to incorporate. There's really only two things people want in East Cobb - our own addresses and our own census statistics... which could be easily solved if the US Census Bureau just designated East Cobb an official CDP, like Dunwoody is and Sandy Springs used to be.

Here is a better idea: Do what is done in places like Minnesota, Illinois, etc. and simply reduce the powers of county government. Let East Cobb be its own township. County governments get in the way.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by pirate_lafitte

Here is a better idea: Do what is done in places like Minnesota, Illinois, etc. and simply reduce the powers of county government. Let East Cobb be its own township. County governments get in the way.

Yep. That's what people don't realize...in Georgia, counties are given too much power (particularly as it affects urban/suburban areas).


Urban/suburban areas are not supposed to be run by counties.

Atlanta should be a network of cities, towns, townships, and villages...with a much-larger city proper.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Yep. That's what people don't realize...in Georgia, counties are given too much power (particularly as it affects urban/suburban areas).


Urban/suburban areas are not supposed to be run by counties.

Atlanta should be a network of cities, towns, townships, and villages...with a much-larger city proper.

I have noticed that county governments tend to be the most corrupt.