Why More Cities Really Means Another County
“Becoming a City” is all the rage in Georgia at the moment. As pointed out at Radical Georgia Moderate, Dekalb CEO Vernon Jones is looking at making all of unincorporated Dekalb County a city. Nominally, this is to capture service fees, but there is a bigger battle going on here.
Sandy Springs has just become a city and now Dunwoody and even unincorporated areas of Dekalb between Chamblee and the City of Atlanta line are looking at creating the City of Ashford.
Ironically, it’s county politics that is a big part of the issue here. With the creation of Sandy Springs, preparations are under way to offer Constitutional Amendments to form Milton County. People who live in Dunwoody want to jump on that band wagon, but so long as they remain in an unincorporated part of Dekalb, they can’t do it. If they form their own city however, they can more easily escape Dekalb.
A lot of this is about money. Some of this is about race and social class. However, the biggest issue here is Balkanization: we don’t need more of it.
The last thing the metro community needs is more government entities all of whom are trying to have influence over the others and try to resource hoard. Imagine what this will do trying to fund the transportation systems alone! Then think about it’s impact on funding programs for kids (as people in one county hate funding a program that actually takes place in another) . Further, we don’t really need an Ashford Civic and Cultural Center. We already have Oglethorpe for
that.
Metro Atlanta will be stronger if everyone works together. We need leadership that focuses more on the region and the engines that drive it than on any given burb.
December 13th, 2005 at 2:23 pm
I agree that all these little balkanized islands are bad for regional projects like funding transportation initiatives, but isn’t the idea of a DeKalb City a little scary, considering how many unique areas there are in the county as it exists? Dunwoody really should split off, as it’s more like Cobb or North Fulton than it is DeKalb anyway.
December 13th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
I’d go the other way around, Rusty. Is there any reason why there should be five separate counties and numerous cities to begin with? Why not have a regional Atlanta government with a neighborhood planning unit system?
Economically, whether different areas are alike doesn’t matter. We’re still part of a single metropolitan statistical area. As the southside goes, so goes the northside.
Of course, I say all this realizing that consolidation is far from politically feasible at the moment. The best chance our region has at having politicians work together is through the ARC.
December 13th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
Joe,
I see where you’re coming from philisophically, in that a regional Metro Atlanta government would probably make it easier to get something done about our awful transit situation (without DeKalb and Fulton counties, it would force everyone’s hand in figuring out a new funding mechanism for MARTA, namely from the state or from at least a more regional approach, or completely dissolving the agency in favor of a new agency).
However, there are a lot of services where a massive, sprawling monolith government would be a disaster. Every time I’ve heard of county and city governments combining (I’m thinking of an example from Texas recently, though I can’t remember the exact city and county off the top of my head), practically all government business has ground to a halt.
It’s a nice idea, but I don’t think it’s practical.
December 13th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Just look at Augusta - ever since their city and county governments combined a few years ago, absolutely nothing can get done. And it’s not like much was getting done beforehand, so you can imagine the stagnation.
I think reinstating Milton County is a good idea (for many of the same reasons Rusty already pointed out). North Fulton and south Fulton are very different places - I think it would make more sense to have people’s tax dollars go to one county or another, rather than trying to spread money (and services) all around Fulton County, from the wealthy ‘burbs in Alpharetta to the socioeconomically disadvantaged areas further south.
December 13th, 2005 at 9:49 pm
Probably. I suppose the larger government would have a chance at working (maybe) with a super-strong mayor form.
But really, my philosophical standpoint is to try to find a way to Balkanize without actually Balkanizing. For certain things, there are strong reasons why greater local control is a very good thing. That’s why I like the NPU system. As Larry said to me at some point during the Manuel’s event, it’s not a perfect system, but it’s better than any of the alternatives.
We had a class at some point this semester where we looked at several case studies. The particular one I looked at began with an analysis of what powers and services were better left to local areas, and which powers and services were better left to the region. A new regional form of government was then established based on the analysis. It was good for a little while, but it turns out that politicians are greedy bastards — sooprise, sooprise! Regional government politicians began to have a hissy fit over what they couldn’t control, then passed amendments to their charter to give themselves control. The whole thing went to hell.
It doesn’t convince me that a regional form can’t work. Once an analysis is conducted and independently verified, there’s a way to codify the results so that the region won’t put its grubby little hands where it shouldn’t. I’m just not sure what that way is.
December 14th, 2005 at 10:36 am
Oglethorpe is a cultural center? Really? Is there a way we can get the word out (and bring back the Original Pancake House nearby)?
Personally I don’t mind being in unincorporated DeKalb County, but then I don’t pay property taxes or have to worry about schools.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:58 am
I think y’all are missing an important point, our huge oversized metro county governments aren’t providing the level of municipal services that people want. How about counties go back to what they were supposed to do in GA before 1972, be vehicles for the provision of state level intitatives like the courts and transportation. Let cities do what they do better- provide municipal services!
December 22nd, 2005 at 3:52 pm
This seems like a problem that the South in general has never been able to figure out. How to move toward greater population density and local control from an agrarian past.
If you look at the midwest that was divided up through the northwest territories act, each state is divided into counties, each county is divided into townships of regular size. And each township might have multiple cities, towns and villages. The idea was and continues to be how to offer as close to possible direct democracy. A representative shouldn’t represent more than a couple of thousand people. Now Chicago is as an extreme example with townships, library districts, counties, villages, park districts all with separate elected boards and taxing ability. But it does give the resident many opportunities to participate in the government. The Northeast which as town meetings and actual direct democracy is another form. These are questions that as a nation we’ve been wrestling with from the beginning. Atlanta is a big metro area and will continue to struggle with the growing pains and powerless feelings of local citizens that don’t feel they have access to power. These are good and proper things for a democracy to be thinking about. (We in DC have a system of ANCs with single member districts that are all subsets of our city council districts. A plan from the 1970s that attempted to offer that ideal of 2,000 residents to every representative. The city council voted not to let the ANCs meet as a total body, though, which sort of negated their purpose. That being said. I know who to call when my trash doesn’t get picked up. Or I’m upset about a new development. Or want more police presence in my neighborhood. Etc.)