North Fulton- does incorporation into a city really save money?

[tdatl]

I agree that it's local control, but I do believe a lot driving it is the money and perceptions of 'fairness' that aren't always based in reality. What's funny is that while, yes it's true that in general the northern section of Fulton County doesn't get spent on services what it contributes, it's not necessarily true specifically.

Milton is a good example. I'm sure if you asked residents of that town prior to incorporation, many would have told you they were subsidizing south Fulton and other areas. Milton's all about very low-density development, lots of horse farms with gravel roads and that sort of stuff. That's all good and well, but single-family homes, especially on sprawling lots and farms, don't contribute much in the way of property taxes vs. what they consume. There's a balance between various densities of commercial, single-family, high-density multi-family, etc. that an area needs to keep taxes reasonable. The single-family homeowners with kids in the public schools aren't exactly kicking in what they're costing us. And same with the five homeowners on that bucolic public road. Someone's subsidizing them.

And as it turns out for Milton, gravel roads are very expensive to maintain. Now that Milton controls its finances, those gravel roads are hurting their budget. Eventually it appears either those are going to go away (and many say that's part of Milton's appeal), or taxes are going to go up. Who was subsidizing that? Oops, apparently those outside of Milton.

And they are dealing with issues of favoritism, same as everywhere else. In sprawling Fulton County, it's north-south; in Roswell, for instance, it's east-west.

It's why I find the whole Milton County debate so fascinating. I live in an area of Fulton County that would become Milton, but at this point I haven't seen enough hard data to make a decision on how I would vote, should we ever get the chance. I think those who think it's a slam-dunk that it would be better for us probably haven't given it a tremendous amount of study. I'd love to see a detailed accounting of exactly where the revenues are coming from and where they're going. And I don't think finances are the only issue.

[Brillemeister]

Part of it is desire for local control. Part of it is desire to disassociate a suburb from the city or another suburb; even my dad, who's never voted Democrat in a presidential election, thought the whole Sandy Springs debacle had a racist undertone, basically echoing what I thought about the whole thing.

Is it racist to want better, more localized government? Absolutely not. I'm just going by what I hear from certain North Fulton residents.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Interesting. I've been reading a bit, and it seems like the unincorporated suburb phenomenon isn't as uncommon as I initially thought, but it does seem to be a regional thing. Las Vegas and Jacksonville are two metro areas where unincorporated suburbs seem to be common.

I also found this Wikipedia entry to be interesting:

Unincorporated area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good link. If one peruses down, they will see a nice blurb about Atlanta.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by Brillemeister

Part of it is desire for local control. Part of it is desire to disassociate a suburb from the city or another suburb; even my dad, who's never voted Democrat in a presidential election, thought the whole Sandy Springs debacle had a racist undertone, basically echoing what I thought about the whole thing.

Is it racist to want better, more localized government? Absolutely not. I'm just going by what I hear from certain North Fulton residents .

Very interesting (and many know this was the reason why many people in SSprings wanted incorporation in the first place).

Thank you for taking your time to post this and make the point.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by tdatl

I agree that it's local control, but I do believe a lot driving it is the money and perceptions of 'fairness' that aren't always based in reality. What's funny is that while, yes it's true that in general the northern section of Fulton County doesn't get spent on services what it contributes, it's not necessarily true specifically.

Milton is a good example. I'm sure if you asked residents of that town prior to incorporation, many would have told you they were subsidizing south Fulton and other areas. Milton's all about very low-density development, lots of horse farms with gravel roads and that sort of stuff. That's all good and well, but single-family homes, especially on sprawling lots and farms, don't contribute much in the way of property taxes vs. what they consume. There's a balance between various densities of commercial, single-family, high-density multi-family, etc. that an area needs to keep taxes reasonable. The single-family homeowners with kids in the public schools aren't exactly kicking in what they're costing us. And same with the five homeowners on that bucolic public road. Someone's subsidizing them.

And as it turns out for Milton, gravel roads are very expensive to maintain. Now that Milton controls its finances, those gravel roads are hurting their budget. Eventually it appears either those are going to go away (and many say that's part of Milton's appeal), or taxes are going to go up. Who was subsidizing that? Oops, apparently those outside of Milton.

And they are dealing with issues of favoritism, same as everywhere else. In sprawling Fulton County, it's north-south; in Roswell, for instance, it's east-west.

It's why I find the whole Milton County debate so fascinating. I live in an area of Fulton County that would become Milton, but at this point I haven't seen enough hard data to make a decision on how I would vote, should we ever get the chance. I think those who think it's a slam-dunk that it would be better for us probably haven't given it a tremendous amount of study. I'd love to see a detailed accounting of exactly where the revenues are coming from and where they're going. And I don't think finances are the only issue.

Good post.