We will continue to be the leader in this and lead people out of Atlanta and into a better future here in Alpharetta.” (Dallas: how much, neighborhoods)

[ronricks]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

When MLK was assassinated in 1968, major central cities all across the country were experiencing an exodus of residents moving from the city to the suburbs.

This is an Atlanta forum so why would I be discussing other cities?

In Atlanta, much of the movement to the suburbs seemed to be motivated more by white residents leaving the City of Atlanta before black residents took over control of Atlanta city government and politics (which eventually happened in 1973 when Maynard Jackson became the first African-American politician to be elected Mayor of Atlanta) than by other factors.

Residents left an Atlanta that was starting to experience crumbling infrastructure, bad services, worse performing schools, increasing property taxes, and higher crime for places that had better infrastructure, better services, great schools, low crime, and much lower property taxes. Most people choose to do things based on economics. For a lot of people it made sense to move to where you could afford a larger lot and home for cheaper that came with all the above.

And when MLK was assassinated in 1968, Ivan Allen was in his last year of his second term in office as Mayor of Atlanta and is widely recognized as one of the most effective mayors in Atlanta history and is also widely recognized as one of the most effective big city mayors in U.S. history, largely because of his supportive stance on Civil Rights and because of the creation of the ‘Atlanta is a city too busy to hate’ slogan that was the centerpiece of one of the most successful civic marketing campaigns in U.S. history.

The Mayors of Atlanta were responsible for the destruction of the city its a big reason why people left and the city of Atlanta experienced such a bad time in the 70's, 80's, and most of the 90's. People started to move back to the city in the late 90's and it surged from 2005 to about 2019 now some longtime residents that have been here since 1996 to 2000 time frame are starting to leave again. Inept leadership from Keisha Lance Bottoms is one major reason. We've lost several neighbors in the last two years to suburban Atlanta. It's a shame.

And the white residents that were leaving the City of Atlanta in significant numbers for the suburbs in the 1960’s were leaving for suburban destinations like DeKalb County, Sandy Springs, Clayton County and Cobb County.

This has already been covered. You also left off Gwinnett County and parts of North Fulton.

Alpharetta and North Fulton County did not really become a hot suburban destination until the early 1990’s around the time that Georgia 400 extension opened through Buckhead and ITP Sandy Springs, where numerous homes were demolished for the construction of the controversial roadway. Before the GA-400 ITP extension was built in the early 1990’s, Alpharetta and the GA-400 corridor significantly lagged the I-75 Northwest and I-85 Northeast corridors in development OTP.

Which is why I specifically said places like Alpharetta which were all the metro counties/cities that have been named. When I85 North was expanded past the Clairmont Rd exit it also cut through majority white neighborhoods causing people to lose their homes, livelihoods, etc.

North of Interstate 285, the Georgia 400 roadway was constructed in the late 1960’s and through the 1970’s when the area was still mostly rural and sparsely development and there was virtually no existing development to contend with in the path of the roadway.

Georgia 400 expansion to this day is causing issues for homeowners that live alongside of it.

By the time that Alpharetta became a hot destination for suburban relocation and development in the 1990’s, the white-flight exodus from the city to the suburbs had abated and much of the growth of outlying areas like Alpharetta was being generated by transplants moving into the area from other states (including and particularly from the Northeast and the Midwest).

I'm from the Northeast and am a transplant. We have lost several neighbors to the Alpharetta/Johns Creek are over the years. I'm well aware but the the words used were places like Alpharetta not specifically Alpharetta in my post. Just like I also didn't claim a second airport to service the Northside would be built in Alpharetta.

Alpharetta is a technological hub because of its relatively proximity to Atlanta (and its ultrabusy international airport and metropolitan arterial road network) and because of its location in one of the hottest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country. Of course, Ivan Allen himself (who left the Atlanta mayor’s office in 1970 and passed in 2003) did not build the Avalon development.

Alpharetta is a technological hub because the leadership there decided to emphasize that during the .com boom of the late 90's and early 2000's and would specifically seek out those types of businesses and recruited them to come there. City of Atlanta Mayors had nothing to do with that. You could give credit to State leadership as they made possible the massive addition to GA 400 in the 90's which also accelerated growth.

But Ivan Allen did set a positive and constructive tone for future economic growth, development and expansion by marketing Atlanta as a tolerant and forward-looking Southern city during a time when the leadership of other Southern cities were resisting the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. And that legendarily positive progressive and forward-looking tone that Mayor Allen set continues to pay dividends for all of metro Atlanta, city, suburbs and exurbs, today.

The city of Atlanta has always been a progressive city especially for the Southeast. You are giving too much credit to people who were the very cause of suburbs because of bad leadership. Bad and ineffective leadership is what gave us the Atlanta suburbs. You are also not giving enough credit to the local leadership in places like North Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, etc. that enabled the suburbs to thrive. Do you really think businesses and families wanted to uproot themselves and move way out away from the city core of Atlanta? It was done out of necessity not because of want. We have experienced a reversal of that trend from about 1999 to now but I see it slipping and losing ground because once again of bad leadership. I bought my first home in city of Atlanta in 1984 when nobody wanted to live here. I can remember all this very vividly and I prefer not to go back to it.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by ronricks

This is an Atlanta forum so why would I be discussing other cities?



Residents left an Atlanta that was starting to experience crumbling infrastructure, bad services, worse performing schools, increasing property taxes, and higher crime for places that had better infrastructure, better services, great schools, low crime, and much lower property taxes. Most people choose to do things based on economics. For a lot of people it made sense to move to where you could afford a larger lot and home for cheaper that came with all the above.



The Mayors of Atlanta were responsible for the destruction of the city its a big reason why people left and the city of Atlanta experienced such a bad time in the 70's, 80's, and most of the 90's. People started to move back to the city in the late 90's and it surged from 2005 to about 2019 now some longtime residents that have been here since 1996 to 2000 time frame are starting to leave again. Inept leadership from Keisha Lance Bottoms is one major reason. We've lost several neighbors in the last two years to suburban Atlanta. It's a shame.



This has already been covered. You also left off Gwinnett County and parts of North Fulton.



Which is why I specifically said places like Alpharetta which were all the metro counties/cities that have been named. When I85 North was expanded past the Clairmont Rd exit it also cut through majority white neighborhoods causing people to lose their homes, livelihoods, etc.



Georgia 400 expansion to this day is causing issues for homeowners that live alongside of it.



I'm from the Northeast and am a transplant. We have lost several neighbors to the Alpharetta/Johns Creek are over the years. I'm well aware but the the words used were places like Alpharetta not specifically Alpharetta in my post. Just like I also didn't claim a second airport to service the Northside would be built in Alpharetta.



Alpharetta is a technological hub because the leadership there decided to emphasize that during the .com boom of the late 90's and early 2000's and would specifically seek out those types of businesses and recruited them to come there. City of Atlanta Mayors had nothing to do with that. You could give credit to State leadership as they made possible the massive addition to GA 400 in the 90's which also accelerated growth.



The city of Atlanta has always been a progressive city especially for the Southeast. You are giving too much credit to people who were the very cause of suburbs because of bad leadership. Bad and ineffective leadership is what gave us the Atlanta suburbs. You are also not giving enough credit to the local leadership in places like North Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, etc. that enabled the suburbs to thrive. Do you really think businesses and families wanted to uproot themselves and move way out away from the city core of Atlanta? It was done out of necessity not because of want. We have experienced a reversal of that trend from about 1999 to now but I see it slipping and losing ground because once again of bad leadership. I bought my first home in city of Atlanta in 1984 when nobody wanted to live here. I can remember all this very vividly and I prefer not to go back to it.

What an interesting attempt to completely dismiss this little thing called white flight. You have absolutely zero proof that people were fleeing 'the failed City of Atlanta.' They were fleeing the unknown, spurred on by unscrupulous real estate agents.

[ronricks]

Originally Posted by JMatl

What an interesting attempt to completely dismiss this little thing called white flight. You have absolutely zero proof that people were fleeing 'the failed City of Atlanta.' They were fleeing the unknown, spurred on by unscrupulous real estate agents.

White and Black people with the means to do such fled the city. Those that didn't have the means (both white and black) were left to deal with the fallout and were not helped by the terrible and inept leadership.

[Phil P]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

There actually is already a site for a second airport north of Atlanta.

The site is the 10,130-acre Dawson Forest tract and it is owned by ... the City of Atlanta, which has owned the site for about 50 years.

The official name of the site is “Dawson Forest - City of Atlanta Tract.”

The CoA purchased the site in 1971 with the intention of possibly eventually developing the site into a second major airport for the Northside of the Atlanta region.

But the growing political sensitivities of the site would make development of it into a second major regional airport extremely difficult if not just outright impossible.

(The site, which is considered to be a state forest and is managed by the Georgia Forestry Commission, is extremely popular with environmentalists and beloved by the growing number of local residents in the area as a little-disturbed exurban foothills wilderness.)

DAWSON FOREST WMA Dawsonville (Georgia Department of Natural Resources)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That's my go to hiking spot when I need a quick getaway. I would be deeply saddened to see it turned into a hotbed of TSA. That is an interesting spot though, I mean the etowah river is right down the middle of it, would they just move the river and do some super grading to flatten it? It's pretty hilly terrain and I'm pretty sure you'd hit granite about 3 feet under the surface.

For better and worse, Atlanta is the metro of 500 small cities. This means the little downtowns are better than other metro counterparts abroad but the big downtown is not very impressive or well connected. It's pretty apparent that Alpharetta is to Sandy Springs what Sandy Springs was to Buckhead, and Cumming is the new Alpharetta and Dawsonville is the new Cumming.

How long this chain northward continues depends on road and transit construction. Given the whole NO to the ring road, increasing environmental concerns over losing temperate rainforest terrain past Dawsonville, and current situation of me driving down 2 lane residential roads from Suwanee to Alpharetta, I don't see Alpharetta being a new Midtown. Plus all that development of the burbs around Alpharetta is too nice to expand or tear anything down on. They can't just build it out more, someones home is already there.

I'd hedge my bets and say south side and east side of the metro are going to be the newer hotspots in 20 years once the easy empty lots up north are spoken for and congestion picks up. It's simply better geography to build stuff on.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

When MLK was assassinated in 1968, major central cities all across the country were experiencing an exodus of residents moving from the city to the suburbs.

Originally Posted by ronricks

This is an Atlanta forum so why would I be discussing other cities?

Yes, this is the Atlanta forum, but the mass migration of residents (mostly middle-class white residents) from inner cities to outlying suburbs was a national trend that began immediately after World War II. So the mass migration of middle-class whites from central cities to outlying suburbs was not a phenomenon that was unique only to Atlanta but affected large cities all over the country.

But the mass migration of middle-class whites from the urban core to outlying suburban areas seemed to be be even more motivated by demographic shifts in the central city (from majority-white to majority-black) in Atlanta and other larger Southern cities than was already the case in larger city/metros all over the country as a whole.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

In Atlanta, much of the movement to the suburbs seemed to be motivated more by white residents leaving the City of Atlanta before black residents took over control of Atlanta city government and politics (which eventually happened in 1973 when Maynard Jackson became the first African-American politician to be elected Mayor of Atlanta) than by other factors.

Originally Posted by ronricks

Residents left an Atlanta that was starting to experience crumbling infrastructure, bad services, worse performing schools, increasing property taxes, and higher crime for places that had better infrastructure, better services, great schools, low crime, and much lower property taxes. Most people choose to do things based on economics. For a lot of people it made sense to move to where you could afford a larger lot and home for cheaper that came with all the above.

But much more than leaving a City of Atlanta for governing reasons (which the City of Atlanta was not really much considered to be a poorly governed municipality in the 1960’s, particularly under a mayor as legendary as Ivan Allen, Jr.) suburban-bound middle-class white residents left a City of Atlanta that was quickly heading towards having a majority of its residents be black in the not-too-distant future... Which black residents became a majority of the City of Atlanta’s population during the decade of the 1970’s, due in large part to white residents leaving the city en masse.

In addition to fleeing from the City of Atlanta for fear of being governed by black politicians in the not-too-distant future, many white residents migrating out of the city to the ‘burbs in the 1960’s were also engaging in the larger societal trend of moving to suburban areas, which were considered to be the hot and trendy places to move to at the time during the post-WWII era.

The mass movement of middle-class whites from central cities to outlying suburbs was a major societal trend that no urban politician could have stopped, no matter how well they may have governed... And Atlanta (which really started to sprout its legs as a major American city during the decade of the 1960’s as it gained three major league professional sports franchises and experienced a significant economic growth spurt under Mayor Allen’s leadership but also experienced middle-class whites moving out of the city in massive numbers to flee the looming prospect of black governance in the not-too-distant future) was no different.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

And when MLK was assassinated in 1968, Ivan Allen was in his last year of his second term in office as Mayor of Atlanta and is widely recognized as one of the most effective mayors in Atlanta history and is also widely recognized as one of the most effective big city mayors in U.S. history, largely because of his supportive stance on Civil Rights and because of the creation of the ‘Atlanta is a city too busy to hate’ slogan that was the centerpiece of one of the most successful civic marketing campaigns in U.S. history.

Originally Posted by ronricks

The Mayors of Atlanta were responsible for the destruction of the city its a big reason why people left and the city of Atlanta experienced such a bad time in the 70's, 80's, and most of the 90's. People started to move back to the city in the late 90's and it surged from 2005 to about 2019 now some longtime residents that have been here since 1996 to 2000 time frame are starting to leave again. Inept leadership from Keisha Lance Bottoms is one major reason. We've lost several neighbors in the last two years to suburban Atlanta. It's a shame.

While some Atlanta mayors definitely have had some undesirable issues (particularly ATL mayors like Campbell and Bottoms), Atlanta mayors like Hartsfield, Allen, Jackson and Young (while not perfect), definitely kept the City of Atlanta from completely tanking like other inner cities (like Detroit, Baltimore, Newark, St. Louis, etc.) during an era of national mass middle-class white out-migration from central cities to suburbs and even set the stage for very robust future growth of both the city and the suburbs/exurbs with their very wise investments (starting with the Airport) and crafty political maneuvers (including the aforementioned ‘City too busy to hate’ marketing campaign, the push for MARTA, international political lobbying for the 1996 Olympics, etc.).

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

And the white residents that were leaving the City of Atlanta in significant numbers for the suburbs in the 1960’s were leaving for suburban destinations like DeKalb County, Sandy Springs, Clayton County and Cobb County.

Originally Posted by ronricks

This has already been covered. You also left off Gwinnett County and parts of North Fulton.

Gwinnett County did not really become a hot suburban relocation destination until about the late 1970’s and really did not come into its own as a major Atlanta suburb until about the 1980’s.

Before about 1980 or so, Gwinnett was experiencing robust growth (particularly from the establishment of the Technology Park Atlanta tech/office park in what is now Peachtree Corners in 1968 and opening of the Western Electric plant in Norcross circa-1972), but was still considered a distant exurb to many metro Atlantans and did not really truly establish itself as a major suburb until the opening of Gwinnett Place Mall in 1984.

Sandy Springs had been a major suburban relocation destination since about the 1950’s, but the area further north along Georgia highways 9 and 400 (Roswell, Alpharetta, Forsyth County, etc) was considered exurban well into the 1980’s and did not really truly explode in growth as a major suburb until after the Georgia 400 ITP extension through Buckhead and the ITP portion of Sandy Springs began construction in the early 1990’s.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Alpharetta and North Fulton County did not really become a hot suburban destination until the early 1990’s around the time that Georgia 400 extension opened through Buckhead and ITP Sandy Springs, where numerous homes were demolished for the construction of the controversial roadway. Before the GA-400 ITP extension was built in the early 1990’s, Alpharetta and the GA-400 corridor significantly lagged the I-75 Northwest and I-85 Northeast corridors in development OTP.

Originally Posted by ronricks

Which is why I specifically said places like Alpharetta which were all the metro counties/cities that have been named. When I85 North was expanded past the Clairmont Rd exit it also cut through majority white neighborhoods causing people to lose their homes, livelihoods, etc.

When the original 4-lane Interstate 85 Northeast Expressway roadway (which the section from the Brookwood Interchange to Cheshire Bridge Road actually slightly predates the implementation of the Interstate Highway system in 1956) was built in the 1950’s, there really was not much development in the path of the roadway at the time.

When the original I-85 Northeast Expressway roadway was built through Northeast Atlanta and north-central DeKalb County in the 1950’s, Atlanta was not anywhere near as large and as populated of a metropolitan area as it is today. So with the exception of only a very small handful of homes on the south side of Buford Highway just east of the Fulton-DeKalb county line, there virtually were no homes or businesses in the path of the road to be effected at the time of planning for the road and construction of the road. The area was mostly undeveloped or just very sparsely developed when I-85 was constructed through there in the 1950’s.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

North of Interstate 285, the Georgia 400 roadway was constructed in the late 1960’s and through the 1970’s when the area was still mostly rural and sparsely development and there was virtually no existing development to contend with in the path of the roadway.

Originally Posted by ronricks

Georgia 400 expansion to this day is causing issues for homeowners that live alongside of it.

While many of the homes that stand directly alongside the GA-400 roadway south of I-285 predate the construction of the GA-400 roadway by many years (meaning the road was built years and even decades after many of those homes were built... though much of the ITP section of GA-400 does feature noise walls through residential areas as an admittedly small consolation for having to live next to a freeway), virtually all of the homes that stand alongside of GA-400 roadway north of I-285 were built after the GA-400 roadway was built.

... Which means that pretty much all of the homeowners that live in houses that stand alongside GA-400 north of I-285 moved there knowing that they would be living very close to/directly alongside a freeway.

It’s very unfortunate, but that’s the chance that one takes when they move into a home that stands right next to a freeway. That’s especially when said freeway is located in a very fast-growing metropolitan area.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

By the time that Alpharetta became a hot destination for suburban relocation and development in the 1990’s, the white-flight exodus from the city to the suburbs had abated and much of the growth of outlying areas like Alpharetta was being generated by transplants moving into the area from other states (including and particularly from the Northeast and the Midwest).

Originally Posted by ronricks

I'm from the Northeast and am a transplant. We have lost several neighbors to the Alpharetta/Johns Creek are over the years. I'm well aware but the the words used were places like Alpharetta not specifically Alpharetta in my post.

It doesn’t matter if one is just talking about Alpharetta or is talking about all prosperous Atlanta suburbs and exurbs, including Alpharetta, no prosperous Atlanta suburb could be and/or would be successful without a strong urban core and without the substantial and critical political and financial investments made in crucial pieces of infrastructure like the Atlanta Airport.

Originally Posted by ronricks

Just like I also didn't claim a second airport to service the Northside would be built in Alpharetta.

I know that you didn’t claim that a second airport to service the Northside would be built in Alpharetta itself, and I personally did not say that you did.

But you did say you think that a second airport would eventually be built somewhere on the Northside to service the fast-growing and increasing population of the area.

And I and others noted just how difficult such a task as building a new airport on the Northside would be as the area’s population continues to grow with residents that most likely would fervently resist any facility as loud and as disruptive to residential areas as a major commercial airport being built in their backyards in an area (north of Atlanta in the Blue Ridge/Appalachian foothills of North Georgia) that already has some notable political sensitivities... As demonstrated by the effective blockage and rejection of the controversial Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc superhighway by many of the same political and social factions (including an odd but robust political coalition of local North Georgia foothills residents, regional and national environmentalists, and Intown Atlanta residents).

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Alpharetta is a technological hub because of its relatively proximity to Atlanta (and its ultrabusy international airport and metropolitan arterial road network) and because of its location in one of the hottest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country. Of course, Ivan Allen himself (who left the Atlanta mayor’s office in 1970 and passed in 2003) did not build the Avalon development.

Originally Posted by ronricks

Alpharetta is a technological hub because the leadership there decided to emphasize that during the .com boom of the late 90's and early 2000's and would specifically seek out those types of businesses and recruited them to come there. City of Atlanta Mayors had nothing to do with that. You could give credit to State leadership as they made possible the massive addition to GA 400 in the 90's which also accelerated growth.

City of Atlanta mayors have had much to do with the leaders of a suburban community like Alpharetta being able to successfully recruit high-profile and high-paying tech business to its environs.

If not for the constant massive financial investments by CoA mayors Hartsfield, Allen, Jackson and even less heralded Atlanta mayors like Campbell, Franklin and Reed in consistently upgrading and expanding the Atlanta Airport into the world’s busiest airport, the leaders of suburban communities like Alpharetta would have had no chance of convincing large corporations to set up operations in their environs.

Originally Posted by ronricks

You could give credit to State leadership as they made possible the massive addition to GA 400 in the 90's which also accelerated growth.

State leaders get credit for pushing through the ITP expansion of GA-400 through Buckhead in the early 1990’s.

But CoA mayors like Andrew Young (who also played a lead role in helping to bring the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta and Georgia along with leading Buckhead citizen Billy Payne) and Maynard Jackson (who made the political maneuvers necessary within Atlanta city government to bring the controversial road to fruition during his third term as mayor) also played a leading role in getting the controversial GA-400 ITP extension built in the early 1990’s in advance of Atlanta’s berth as host of the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

But Ivan Allen did set a positive and constructive tone for future economic growth, development and expansion by marketing Atlanta as a tolerant and forward-looking Southern city during a time when the leadership of other Southern cities were resisting the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. And that legendarily positive progressive and forward-looking tone that Mayor Allen set continues to pay dividends for all of metro Atlanta, city, suburbs and exurbs, today.

Originally Posted by ronricks

The city of Atlanta has always been a progressive city especially for the Southeast. You are giving too much credit to people who were the very cause of suburbs because of bad leadership. Bad and ineffective leadership is what gave us the Atlanta suburbs. You are also not giving enough credit to the local leadership in places like North Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, etc. that enabled the suburbs to thrive. Do you really think businesses and families wanted to uproot themselves and move way out away from the city core of Atlanta? It was done out of necessity not because of want. We have experienced a reversal of that trend from about 1999 to now but I see it slipping and losing ground because once again of bad leadership. I bought my first home in city of Atlanta in 1984 when nobody wanted to live here. I can remember all this very vividly and I prefer not to go back to it.

And you’re not giving any credit to the City of Atlanta leaders who made decisions and investments that directly led to outlying suburban metro Atlanta communities thriving and prospering.

City of Atlanta leaders (including CoA mayors) have had their faults like pretty much any big-city leaders do.

But Atlanta mayors and civic leaders certainly have been effective enough to build, upgrade and expand the Atlanta Airport into the busiest on the planet. And Atlanta mayors and civic leaders certainly were effective enough to win the right to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, which was an economic game-changer for the entire greater Atlanta region and the entire state of Georgia.

No one said that suburban leaders did not play an important role in generating the economic successes that their communities are experiencing. But those suburban leaders did not do it alone, they got a massive boost from City of Atlanta leaders who wisely projected an exceedingly business-friendly image for the entire region while investing massive amounts of City of Atlanta funds into growing the Atlanta Airport into a facility that the entire region and state benefit from immensely as the site of the world’s busiest airport.

And many businesses and families did leave the city for the suburbs and exurbs because of a combination of racial fears of being governed by black political leaders in the CoA and because of strong societal trends and pressures that presented the suburbs as the best place for middle-class and many affluent white residents to be in the post-WWII era.

And, as demonstrated by the continued flow of major corporate relocations into and expansions in the city (including the establishment of Microsoft’s East Coast headquarters campus by the BeltLine on the near-west side of Intown Atlanta), the City of Atlanta is not going back.

The Bottoms mayoral administration most likely was an aberration that has been experienced by many major central cities all over the country during an adversely disruptive period that has been a unique time in human history.

[Need4Camaro]

B2R I love how you remain calculated but calm in your arguments. Keep up the good work.

[arjay57]

Race and governance were both major factors in the growth of suburbia but ER can't be overlooked. That's still true.

[ronricks]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Yes, this is the Atlanta forum, but the mass migration of residents (mostly middle-class white residents) from inner cities to outlying suburbs was a national trend that began immediately after World War II. So the mass migration of middle-class whites from central cities to outlying suburbs was not a phenomenon that was unique only to Atlanta but affected large cities all over the country.

But the mass migration of middle-class whites from the urban core to outlying suburban areas seemed to be be even more motivated by demographic shifts in the central city (from majority-white to majority-black) in Atlanta and other larger Southern cities than was already the case in larger city/metros all over the country as a whole.





But much more than leaving a City of Atlanta for governing reasons (which the City of Atlanta was not really much considered to be a poorly governed municipality in the 1960’s, particularly under a mayor as legendary as Ivan Allen, Jr.) suburban-bound middle-class white residents left a City of Atlanta that was quickly heading towards having a majority of its residents be black in the not-too-distant future... Which black residents became a majority of the City of Atlanta’s population during the decade of the 1970’s, due in large part to white residents leaving the city en masse.

In addition to fleeing from the City of Atlanta for fear of being governed by black politicians in the not-too-distant future, many white residents migrating out of the city to the ‘burbs in the 1960’s were also engaging in the larger societal trend of moving to suburban areas, which were considered to be the hot and trendy places to move to at the time during the post-WWII era.

The mass movement of middle-class whites from central cities to outlying suburbs was a major societal trend that no urban politician could have stopped, no matter how well they may have governed... And Atlanta (which really started to sprout its legs as a major American city during the decade of the 1960’s as it gained three major league professional sports franchises and experienced a significant economic growth spurt under Mayor Allen’s leadership but also experienced middle-class whites moving out of the city in massive numbers to flee the looming prospect of black governance in the not-too-distant future) was no different.





While some Atlanta mayors definitely have had some undesirable issues (particularly ATL mayors like Campbell and Bottoms), Atlanta mayors like Hartsfield, Allen, Jackson and Young (while not perfect), definitely kept the City of Atlanta from completely tanking like other inner cities (like Detroit, Baltimore, Newark, St. Louis, etc.) during an era of national mass middle-class white out-migration from central cities to suburbs and even set the stage for very robust future growth of both the city and the suburbs/exurbs with their very wise investments (starting with the Airport) and crafty political maneuvers (including the aforementioned ‘City too busy to hate’ marketing campaign, the push for MARTA, international political lobbying for the 1996 Olympics, etc.).





Gwinnett County did not really become a hot suburban relocation destination until about the late 1970’s and really did not come into its own as a major Atlanta suburb until about the 1980’s.

Before about 1980 or so, Gwinnett was experiencing robust growth (particularly from the establishment of the Technology Park Atlanta tech/office park in what is now Peachtree Corners in 1968 and opening of the Western Electric plant in Norcross circa-1972), but was still considered a distant exurb to many metro Atlantans and did not really truly establish itself as a major suburb until the opening of Gwinnett Place Mall in 1984.

Sandy Springs had been a major suburban relocation destination since about the 1950’s, but the area further north along Georgia highways 9 and 400 (Roswell, Alpharetta, Forsyth County, etc) was considered exurban well into the 1980’s and did not really truly explode in growth as a major suburb until after the Georgia 400 ITP extension through Buckhead and the ITP portion of Sandy Springs began construction in the early 1990’s.





When the original 4-lane Interstate 85 Northeast Expressway roadway (which the section from the Brookwood Interchange to Cheshire Bridge Road actually slightly predates the implementation of the Interstate Highway system in 1956) was built in the 1950’s, there really was not much development in the path of the roadway at the time.

When the original I-85 Northeast Expressway roadway was built through Northeast Atlanta and north-central DeKalb County in the 1950’s, Atlanta was not anywhere near as large and as populated of a metropolitan area as it is today. So with the exception of only a very small handful of homes on the south side of Buford Highway just east of the Fulton-DeKalb county line, there virtually were no homes or businesses in the path of the road to be effected at the time of planning for the road and construction of the road. The area was mostly undeveloped or just very sparsely developed when I-85 was constructed through there in the 1950’s.





While many of the homes that stand directly alongside the GA-400 roadway south of I-285 predate the construction of the GA-400 roadway by many years (meaning the road was built years and even decades after many of those homes were built... though much of the ITP section of GA-400 does feature noise walls through residential areas as an admittedly small consolation for having to live next to a freeway), virtually all of the homes that stand alongside of GA-400 roadway north of I-285 were built after the GA-400 roadway was built.

... Which means that pretty much all of the homeowners that live in houses that stand alongside GA-400 north of I-285 moved there knowing that they would be living very close to/directly alongside a freeway.

It’s very unfortunate, but that’s the chance that one takes when they move into a home that stands right next to a freeway. That’s especially when said freeway is located in a very fast-growing metropolitan area.





It doesn’t matter if one is just talking about Alpharetta or is talking about all prosperous Atlanta suburbs and exurbs, including Alpharetta, no prosperous Atlanta suburb could be and/or would be successful without a strong urban core and without the substantial and critical political and financial investments made in crucial pieces of infrastructure like the Atlanta Airport.




I know that you didn’t claim that a second airport to service the Northside would be built in Alpharetta itself, and I personally did not say that you did.

But you did say you think that a second airport would eventually be built somewhere on the Northside to service the fast-growing and increasing population of the area.

And I and others noted just how difficult such a task as building a new airport on the Northside would be as the area’s population continues to grow with residents that most likely would fervently resist any facility as loud and as disruptive to residential areas as a major commercial airport being built in their backyards in an area (north of Atlanta in the Blue Ridge/Appalachian foothills of North Georgia) that already has some notable political sensitivities... As demonstrated by the effective blockage and rejection of the controversial Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc superhighway by many of the same political and social factions (including an odd but robust political coalition of local North Georgia foothills residents, regional and national environmentalists, and Intown Atlanta residents).





City of Atlanta mayors have had much to do with the leaders of a suburban community like Alpharetta being able to successfully recruit high-profile and high-paying tech business to its environs.

If not for the constant massive financial investments by CoA mayors Hartsfield, Allen, Jackson and even less heralded Atlanta mayors like Campbell, Franklin and Reed in consistently upgrading and expanding the Atlanta Airport into the world’s busiest airport, the leaders of suburban communities like Alpharetta would have had no chance of convincing large corporations to set up operations in their environs.




State leaders get credit for pushing through the ITP expansion of GA-400 through Buckhead in the early 1990’s.

But CoA mayors like Andrew Young (who also played a lead role in helping to bring the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta and Georgia along with leading Buckhead citizen Billy Payne) and Maynard Jackson (who made the political maneuvers necessary within Atlanta city government to bring the controversial road to fruition during his third term as mayor) also played a leading role in getting the controversial GA-400 ITP extension built in the early 1990’s in advance of Atlanta’s berth as host of the 1996 Summer Olympics.





And you’re not giving any credit to the City of Atlanta leaders who made decisions and investments that directly led to outlying suburban metro Atlanta communities thriving and prospering.

City of Atlanta leaders (including CoA mayors) have had their faults like pretty much any big-city leaders do.

But Atlanta mayors and civic leaders certainly have been effective enough to build, upgrade and expand the Atlanta Airport into the busiest on the planet. And Atlanta mayors and civic leaders certainly were effective enough to win the right to host the 1996 Summer Olympics, which was an economic game-changer for the entire greater Atlanta region and the entire state of Georgia.

No one said that suburban leaders did not play an important role in generating the economic successes that their communities are experiencing. But those suburban leaders did not do it alone, they got a massive boost from City of Atlanta leaders who wisely projected an exceedingly business-friendly image for the entire region while investing massive amounts of City of Atlanta funds into growing the Atlanta Airport into a facility that the entire region and state benefit from immensely as the site of the world’s busiest airport.

And many businesses and families did leave the city for the suburbs and exurbs because of a combination of racial fears of being governed by black political leaders in the CoA and because of strong societal trends and pressures that presented the suburbs as the best place for middle-class and many affluent white residents to be in the post-WWII era.

And, as demonstrated by the continued flow of major corporate relocations into and expansions in the city (including the establishment of Microsoft’s East Coast headquarters campus by the BeltLine on the near-west side of Intown Atlanta), the City of Atlanta is not going back.

The Bottoms mayoral administration most likely was an aberration that has been experienced by many major central cities all over the country during an adversely disruptive period that has been a unique time in human history.

Economics, taxes, jobs, schools, safety, infrastructure. That is why people and businesses left Atlanta over a prolonged period of time starting in the late 1960's well into the late 1980's. These people over a prolonged time moved to places like DeKalb, Gwinnett, Clayton, Cobb, North Fulton. That is still true to this very day. I have many co workers who would like to live in the city proper but the #1 reason is more often than not they simply can't afford it especially if they have children. Most people like to keep more of their money in their pocket and will make life choices with their pocketbooks in mind. A huge word salad repeating the same thing over and over isn't going to change that.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by ronricks

Economics, taxes, jobs, schools, safety, infrastructure. That is why people and businesses left Atlanta over a prolonged period of time starting in the late 1960's well into the late 1980's. These people over a prolonged time moved to places like DeKalb, Gwinnett, Clayton, Cobb, North Fulton. That is still true to this very day. I have many co workers who would like to live in the city proper but the #1 reason is more often than not they simply can't afford it especially if they have children. Most people like to keep more of their money in their pocket and will make life choices with their pocketbooks in mind. A huge word salad repeating the same thing over and over isn't going to change that.

Many factors played a role in middle-class white residents leaving the City of Atlanta, mostly for outlying jurisdictions like DeKalb County, Clayton County and Cobb County before 1980, and then also for outlying jurisdictions like Gwinnett and North Fulton counties after 1980. (Though the Atlanta suburbs also attracted an increasing (number of out-of-state transplants after 1980, and an escalating number of both out-of-state transplants and immigrants after 1990 when Atlanta was named host of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.)

But rapid demographic shifts and fear of being governed by black politicians in a CoA that was quickly trending towards a majority-black population also played a very lead role in middle-class whites leaving the CoA en masse for the ‘burbs between the 1950’s and the late 1980’s.

And no amount of word salad, repeating the same thing over and over, glaring omissions and personal barbs on your part is going to change that reality.

[glovenyc]

Originally Posted by aries4118

any second metro atlanta airport will/should go to dobbins, or possibly briscoe.

nimby