Atlanta Metropolitan Area - Government and Politics

Government and Politics

Georgia has the smallest average county size of any state which operates county governments. This focuses government more locally but allows greater conflict between multiple jurisdictions, each with its own agenda.

The first significant intergovernmental agency in metro Atlanta was the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which runs the MARTA public transportation system. Alongside other factors such as race and class, as well as a lack of planning and perceived lack of need, problems associated with the inner city of Atlanta (crime, poverty, and poor public school performance) influenced Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton county voters to refuse MARTA into their respective counties during the 1970s, which has permanently altered land development in the region toward making automobiles even more of a necessity.

The Atlanta Regional Commission is so far the closest that the area has come to a metropolitan government. It only approves projects deemed to have an impact beyond the immediate area in which they are to be constructed. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is somewhat of a cross between ARC and MARTA, working to improve mobility, air quality and land use practices in the region. GRTA also operates Xpress buses from 11 counties, and could operate commuter rail service in the future. Currently, plans for commuter rail and eventual intercity rail (including the long-proposed but still unfunded Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal) are the responsibility of the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority, which receives almost no funding.

Despite meeting in Atlanta, on land donated to it by the city for the Georgia State Capitol, the Georgia General Assembly has often been at odds with the city. During the mid-2000s, the legislature voted to force Atlanta to abandon its living wage law. It also tried to vote against the city's tree-protection ordinance, a move which would have allowed any tree in Georgia to be destroyed for any reason had it passed.

Funding formulas for roads have also been skewed toward rural legislators' political districts, particularly the Governor's Road Improvement Plan (GRIP), which encouraged divided highways even in places where they were not justified by actual or projected traffic. This, combined with a state constitution which prohibits motor fuel taxes from being used on anything other than roads (including on public transportation that eases traffic on those roads), has left the metro area in a very difficult situation when it comes to transportation.

There have been proposals since 2007 to allow new multi-county sales taxes, in addition to existing county sales taxes for roads, which would pay for regional transportation initiatives. However, long-time powerful road lobbyists in the state have pushed for proposals heavily skewed toward more roads and little or no alternative transportation systems, like the ones which are being expanded in other major metro areas of the South like Nashville, Charlotte, and Miami.