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Joe pointed out that Fulton County is, in many ways a Microcosm for the entire state.  His analysis is dead on. 
Did you know there are farms in Fulton?   Not horse farms, but actual crop raising farms.  
There are also 11 different municipalities in Fulton, and they represent all kinds.   Alpharetta and Roswell are exo-burbs who depend on the city but whose residents don’t have a daily relationship with it.  Sandy Springs is the nearby old money suburb of prosperity.  Sandy Springs succeeds because it can rely on the city for golf courses, concert venues, & restaurants.
Next is The City of Atlanta.  Neighborhoods, jobs, essential urban core, cultural services including chess hustlers, overpriced condos, all of it.
Then you get the hep villages on the rise such as College Park and East Point.  You also have the company towns such as Forest Park & Hapeville.  As Delta suffers so do Hapevillans.
Lastly, you have the classic small southern towns: Union City, Fairburn, and Palmetto.  
By the time you get to Palmetto any relationship to the City of Atlanta seems mistily remote at best.  This is a deep southern town.
Just like the rest of Georgia, Fulton county has been urbanizing and those who can harness the energy of Atlanta have become better off.
Why does this matter?  Because it’s easier to asses the mood and direction of one county than the whole state, and because The county commission  is a much more responsive place than the Legislature.  These cities have elections this year.  As they trend, so the state is likely to trend next year.  To drive around each of the cities is also to take the cultural mood of each place.
Lastly, there are some interesting transit possibilities.  Fulton already directly pays into MARTA. 
As a result they can exploit maxtrans possibilities to bring service into those communities.  If there were an express line that did not depend on traffic lights, it would show the developement possibilites of regional transit.  All with no state interference!
BTW, if you want a complete list of Georgia Cities click here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2005 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Politics, as Usual. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.