Buckhead Cityhood's failings
Buckhead cityhood is a part of 'old Atlanta' we should leave behind
Welcome to my freemium newsletter by me, King Williams. A documentary filmmaker, journalist, podcast host, and author based in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a newsletter covering the hidden connections of Atlanta to everything else.
Women’s History Month events:
Nathalie Stutzmann will lead the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on 3/23 and 3/25
1. Buckhead Cityhood is dead, again
Buckhead Cityhood is finally put to rest. The three-year ordeal to secede Buckhead, the most affluent area of Atlanta from the city proper is now over according to the Buckhead Cityhood Committee in an email sent to its supporters.
The idea of Buckhead Cityhood was given a huge push forward last week, only to crash on full public display. This week saw the surprise of two Republican-proposed bills aimed at cityhood, Senate Bills 113 and 114 both passing in a senate subcommittee meeting. The two bills were passed along party lines (4R vs 3D) giving a jolt to the possibility of cityhood for Buckhead. But after last week’s full State Senate vote, the idea is dead, again—well at least for now. So what happened?
2. What is Buckhead?
TL/DR: Buckhead is the northern portion of the city of Atlanta.
Originally annexed into the city of Atlanta in 1952 as an effort to stave off the then-growing Black population in Atlanta. Prior to annexation, this area was home to a post-farmland economic center transitioning into a then-modern wealthy suburban enclave of Atlanta’s white movers and shakers. It also had a sizeable Black population that was removed systematically in the 1940s and 1950s. That removal also laid the grounds for what would be the future commercial districts of Buckhead that are known today.
In the process of transition, many of the farms were sold, while many of the Black residents were forced out. In addition, the land became home to a growing base of wealthier Atlantans who were moving further northward. A population that grew in part from the white flight era of Atlanta from the 1940s-1970s. As a result, Buckhead for nearly 70 years has been the hallmark of wealth in the city. Buckhead and its business community have enjoyed maintaining a large influence on dictating what does and doesn’t happen in the city. But in the last 25 years, the area has grown more politically diverse than in years past and is becoming more racially diverse as well.
3. How did we get to Buckhead secession?
TL/DR: White flight, 2020, a series of successful Cityhood movements across the metro Atlanta area and a rise in notable crimes, mainly shootings in the area.
Background: Buckhead has always had a tenuous relationship with Atlanta leadership. The attempted secession is the most extreme case in a decades-long relationship of Atlanta’s racial and socio-political history.
Lt. Governor Burt Jones and eight state republicans also are how we got to cityhood 2.0
How cityhood made it to a vote this year is due to the legislative shepherding of newly elected, Lt. Governor Burt Jones. Jones, a 2020 election denier and one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed on to be a fake elector for President Trump’s attempted coup in 2020. Jones was also one of the initial Buckhead cityhood bill sponsors last year.
Since the first defeat of the cityhood effort last year by then-Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan, it seemed as if Buckhead cityhood was dead. Fast forward a few months, after one of the bill’s key sponsors, Jones defeated Charlie Bailey for Geoff Duncan’s position, cityhood was back on the table. This time with a new set of state lawmakers to take on sponsoring the effort, manifesting in SB 113 and SB114. But unlike in 2022, Georgia’s newly elected Lt. Governor would not kill this bill, leading to the progress cityhood made until last Thursday’s vote.
4. How did Buckhead get so much clout in the first place?
TL/DR: White flight. White flight in Atlanta began in the 1940s and lasted until the early 1980s.
White flight in Atlanta was a four-decade redistribution of residents and wealth from within the racially segregated white neighborhoods of Atlanta to the north side of the city, Buckhead, and the newly created suburbs. This was a result of desegregation, integration, and the backlash to the civil rights movement. Atlanta was no different.
From my previous newsletter: White Flight in Atlanta and The New Voting Power in Georgia - 12/18/2020
As whites abandoned the city of Atlanta, the ethos of many of its suburban developments were to provide a newer safe haven of self-segregation. Segregation of jobs, financial institutions, public spaces, retail, housing, and other notions of American prosperity. For many whites throughout the 1950s, the notion of federal legal and armed mandates of ‘forced integration’ represented a bridge too far in ‘personal’ freedoms and the fallacy of ‘states rights’. The suburbs represented a kinder, more racially coded, and often gated community, free from the problems of the city white residents purposely caused.
These problems included purposely defunding the city government via the tax revolts of the 1950s/60s, alongside closing down public recreation centers, and removal of white children from public schools due to the announcement of integration, to name a few. Although, in the case of Peyton Road, building an actual blockade to keep African Americans out of their neighborhood of Cascade Heights in 1962. After the subsequent pushback, white Atlantans completely abandoned the Westside of Atlanta for the racially segregated Cobb County.
The city was already experiencing an exodus of White Atlantans from the city into the newly developing suburbs in Cobb, North Fulton, and Gwinnett counties, while also moving further eastward into neighboring DeKalb County.
The city’s white flight-related losses were Buckhead’s gain
The compound effects of white flight aided in decelerating the city of Atlanta’s overall population, infrastructure, schools, and budgetary needs. On top of an overall decline in the city’s non-Buckhead located commercial and residential markets. This quickly evolved into challenges on resource allocation, education, taxes, policing, and economic development. Decades later, Buckhead now operates as a quasi-financial hub, regional retail center, and tourism district outside of downtown proper, atypical for most US cities.
The 1973 Atlanta mayors race
The 1973 Mayors race between incumbent Sam Massell, Atlanta’s first and only Jewish mayor (as well as its last white mayor), and Maynard Jackson would become a representative of how race relations and political power operate in Atlanta.
From my previous newsletter: RIP Mayor Sam Massell - 3/15/2022 — Re-election loss and the election of Maynard Jackson
That election would eventually see Jackson upset Massell to become Atlanta’s first Black mayor. That election was noticeable for the dog-whistle politics that emerged from Massell’s campaign. A sharp departure from the campaign that was presented four years prior. The most well-known slogan during the election, ‘Atlanta’s Too Young to Die’ was a direct reference to the idea of Maynard Jackson, being Atlanta’s first Black Mayor. The ad reflected the attitudes at the time overlapping a shift in attitudes towards Black political leadership and the peak of white flight from Atlanta in the 1970s. Massell in defeat did not stay away from remaining a political figure, as his proceeding third act of his life would see his merging of his entreprenuership and his city hall experience lend him to become ‘The Mayor of Buckhead’.
Massell’s use of the slogan “Atlanta’s too young to die” while stumping on the campaign was a softer dog whistle to those concerned that Maynard Jackson, the grandson of ‘the Mayor of Auburn Avenue’ John Wesley Dobbs, would drag Atlanta down. The resentment politics of that phrase and Jackson’s ascension foreshadowed the role of race and the mayor’s office would have in Atlanta over the presiding years.
‘The Mayor of Buckhead’
Jackson would eventually win the election, becoming Atlanta’s first Black mayor and Massell would then retreat back to Buckhead, eventually becoming the de facto leader of the area as he was colloquially called ‘the mayor of Buckhead’. Massell, while not holding an officially recognized position, has been a liaison between the official leadership and those with interests in Buckhead. Over the years, the area, its residents, and businesses have only grown in prominence with Massell acting as a major factor in many of those endeavors.
From my previous newsletter: RIP Mayor Sam Massell - 3/15/2022 —
The post-political career of Massell saw him continue to be a force in Atlanta politics. Massell served on the Board of MARTA, as well as was a member of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG). Massell also became a key supporter in the eventual election of Shirley Franklin in 2001…
…Massell also used his political heft to aid in the creation of Georgia 400, a then-toll road connecting Buckhead to the northern suburbs. His biggest impact post-mayor being the founding of the Buckhead Coalition, arguably the most impactful civic organization in the city’s history…
...Under the guidance of the Buckhead Coalition, the smaller economic development arm, the Buckhead Community Improvement District (Buckhead CID) that was spun off into a separate, successful organization.
Massell prior to his death in March of 2022, was an ardent critic of the idea of Buckhead Cityhood and used his position to lobby behind the scenes to stop it.
5. Sandy Springs and other cityhood movements
TL/DR: The entire metro Atlanta cityhood movement began with Sandy Springs.
The incorporation of Sandy Springs in 2005 is the start of the modern Cityhood movement. Since the arrival of Sandy Springs, several other cityhood initiatives including the 2006 incorporation of the cities of Milton and Johns Creek in North Fulton, as well as the 2012 incorporation of Brookhaven; all of which were mostly white, mostly conservative, and Republican-led efforts have passed. Sandy Springs’s effort to self-segregate the northern suburban enclave began in the 1960s before a series of legal and political challenges finally allowed for its 2005 referendum. In that special election, the majority of voters chose cityhood.
Via The New York Times: A Georgia Town Takes the People’s Business Private - 6/23/12
Does the Sandy Springs approach work? It does for Sandy Springs, says the city manager, John F. McDonough, who points not only to the town’s healthy balance sheet but also to high marks from residents on surveys about quality of life and quality of government services.
But that doesn’t mean “the model” can be easily exported — Sandy Springs has the built-in advantage that comes from wealth — or that its widespread adoption would enhance the commonweal. Critics contend that the town is a white-flight suburb that has essentially seceded from Fulton County, a 70-mile-long stretch that includes many poor and largely African-American areas, most of them in Atlanta and points south.
The veiled racism of Sandy Springs incorporation
Sandy Springs residents were some of the most vocal about their tax dollars being spent on other places within Fulton County. Sandy Springs, like the other initiatives, focused on the role of taxation being spent countywide versus within their localities. Sandy Springs and Brookhaven, both expressed issues regarding the need for a higher level of street-level policing and patrolling that were alleged to be not addressed by Fulton and DeKalb County respectively. When directly asked about the concerns of the removal of tax funds to the broader, blacker counties at large were dismissed.
Oliver Porter, leader of Sandy Springs privatization
The leader of that movement Oliver Porter, “Creating the New City of Sandy Springs.” Sandy Springs’s incorporation was unique in that it attempted to outsource nearly all of its services. Based on the libertarian principles of free enterprise being better at the administration of government-related duties versus the actual government.
In time, the need for a centralized managed city government won over the private market. Within a few years after opening, there were attempts to expand city government to meet the needs and save costs. By 2019, the city ended up saving money by having government-ran facilities. The private market price gouging and misreads of the market led to a reevaluation of the initial strategy. Cityhood cost Sandy Springs more than expected.
While Porter has decided to take his cause to Latin America, a place being inundated with new entrants of American free-market gospel and conservative culture warriors of recent. Porter’s newest initiative, Próspera, hopes to now create a free-market city-state in Honduras. Even that initiative is facing some pushback from locals.
The other costs of the privatization of Sandy Springs
In the end, Sandy Springs had to raise taxes (several times), expand its local government, and provide some government-managed services to citizens, eschewing the private market options. While early supporters of the free market lost out, the main concerns of ‘wasteful government spending’ and allocation of their tax dollars to ‘undeserving’ South Fulton have mostly gone away, mostly.
The Sandy Springs residents of 2023 are okay with these changes. The city keeps growing, becoming more diverse, and is taking a slow move towards a suburban urbanist retrofit in some parts.
The other post-Sandy Springs successful cityhood movements
Since the incorporation of Sandy Springs, several other municipalities have successfully created their own enclaves. DeKalb County has had three, Brookhaven in 2012, alongside both Tucker and Stonecrest in 2016. The city of South Fulton in 2017. In November of 2022, the city of Mableton became the most recent member of the cityhood club. Mableton, despite being voted on in November is already facing succession efforts from those who wish not to be a part of the newly created city.
But cityhood doesn’t always work.
Last year saw three different cityhood efforts fail in Cobb County, all in traditionally Republican-leaning districts. The cityhood effort closest to the Buckhead cityhood scenario, the ill-fated City of Eagles Landing in Henry County also failed. That initiative was similar to Buckhead in that it would’ve meant annexing part of the already existing city of Stockbridge’s wealthiest parts and its most successful commercial district to create a new city.
While a new initiative, the city of DeKalb, a 200,000 plan encompassing most of unincorporated South DeKalb County faces an uphill climb. A climb based on a previously failed effort, the city of Greenhaven in the early-mid 2010s. Alongside a possibility that A) the residents reject the effort, deciding to stay unincorporated or B) the same proposed section of South DeKalb could be annexed into the city of Atlanta proper, opening the doors for millions more in federal funding.
6. The problems with Buckhead cityhood
TL/DR: The City of Buckhead City’s dollars made no sense.
Unlike recent cityhood initiatives in metro Atlanta, Buckhead Cityhood would’ve undone decades of state law, setting a precedent that may not work out long-term for cityhood supporters. This was in addition to a series of related problems that couldn’t be easily parsed in a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote.
From my 2/14 newsletter: Buckhead cityhood pt.2…
The problems with Buckhead cityhood:
To do this would require the city to de-annex from the City of Atlanta, after being annexed into the city in 1952.
Doing this would also require a series of separate agreements on key infrastructure items such as sewage, water, road repairs, 911 dispatch, schools, properties owned by the city of Atlanta
This would also affect the credit rating of the city of Atlanta and Buckhead City, making the overall state of Georgia’s credit rating potentially at risk
This also requires a change to existing state laws regarding local municipalities engaging in annexing, de-annexing, and acquiring new and/or existing land
The Buckhead cityhood push is still unclear on key funding mechanisms for its city separation and has not engaged in any series of non-affiliated economic feasibility studies.
Problem #1: The city of Buckhead City would’ve set up a scenario that would undo the fabric of local governments throughout the state.
To make the City of Buckhead City would mean changing state law to do so. If the city of Buckhead City were to exist then it would open the door for any city to petition to annex or de-annex any potentially valuable asset from any municipality.
Problem #2: The dollars didn’t make any sense.
The biggest issue of Buckhead cityhood would be the costs of secession on the city and the newly created city. The $3 billion in bonds already issued to cover Atlanta’s infrastructure and other needs could not easily be settled through a separation.
Additionally, the announced plan to take several key parcels for literal pennies on the dollar was a non-starter. For example, writing into law that Atlanta-owned parkland could’ve been sold for $100 an acre, would make Chastain Park, arguably located in the wealthiest part of the city, with its current market rate of $1,000,000+ an acre an actual case for land theft. Or where a fire station, which typically goes for at least $ 10-15 million per building, would be sold for $5,000 dollars under those terms.
Problem #3: The infrastructure can’t be separated.
If the City of Buckhead City were to actually happen, it wouldn’t be a physical separation from Atlanta, just a legal one.
The water and sewage are one system. The Beltline which cuts through Buckhead is a city of Atlanta park. In addition, the other private market utilities such as gas and electricity are now subject to new agreements with Buckhead City.
An additional plan would be needed for how to use 911 and emergency management services were not factored into the Buckhead city plan. Service would have to either be contracted out or a new system would have to be created altogether. A problem that still happens in the triangle of Atlanta-DeKalb County-Fulton County already.
The roads that intersect Buckhead and the city of Atlanta are interconnected. The issue of who will cover the various roadways would require either a GDOT model of a contractor-based system (likely with the same cronyism attached) or to create its own department. The city would also likely have to contract the city of Atlanta or Fulton County for these services.
Problem #4: Becoming a separate city doesn’t stop crime.
An ongoing point in the cityhood debate was the fact that separating from the city of Atlanta would not stop crime.
Buckhead is still the safest part of the city. As it was in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Buckhead already has two police precincts, and recently added a third as soon as Mayor Dickens took office. The area also has more allocated offers for patrols in the area. Should Dickens reach his goal of 2,000 officers (APD is at roughly 1,500), including a goal of swearing in 250 new officers in his first year in office. Atlanta could allocate hundreds more to Buckhead.
The proposed Buckhead City would have 250 police officers for the area. 250 officers who would need to have better pay than the starting salaries of Atlanta’s $48,500, Brookhaven’s $48,500, Milton’s $53,893, and Sandy Springs’s $56,672,
Those officers in theory would protect the area from street-level crimes. But considering most crimes happen with some familiarity and also often in unplanned situations, it’s not likely to stop every type of crime.
For private buildings, apartments, condos, and other dwellings, it’s on the owner, not the police to protect those areas. Police can and do show up to private businesses upon reasonable requests, it’s not a guarantee it will stop everything.
Problem #5: There were no tangible plans for schools
The issue of who gets Buckhead’s public schools was always under scrutiny. Many of APS’s highest-performing and most well-resourced schools are located in Buckhead, offering an alternative to the myriad of private schools in the area.
Buckhead City’s proposed plan would’ve seen several schools put up for either being sold for pennies on the dollar at $1,000 per building. With the proposal to place all remaining Atlanta Public Schools into the Fulton County Public School System.
Problem #6: The plan was supported by Buckhead Republicans, not Buckhead Democrats
According to a 2021 survey, the biggest supporters of Buckhead cityhood were Republicans, not Democrats. Considering the area is 3/5ths Democrat supporting (and trending upward), there was already an uphill battle against the cityhood initiative.
Problem #7: The city of Buckhead City couldn’t grow out, only up
Buckhead had one additional problem, the land presented very limited pockets for future development. Buckhead despite its reputation is mostly covered by low-density residential neighborhoods, strip malls, and retail.
Cities typically have to annex territory to meet future needs of infrastructure, residential, and commercial development. For Buckhead City to be feasible in the long term, the only option would be to move northwest into the Cobb-Atlanta territory to access new land. A likely legal challenge from both Cobb, Fulton, and/or the City of Atlanta would also emerge on those disputed portions of land.
Buckhead’s most viable spots are already covered with existing development. Despite a recent uptick in new development, there is a possibility that the city could reach peak population soon unless newer, denser housing options are added.
Problem #8: The city of Buckhead City would have to compete with other cities
If the city of Buckhead City were to be its own city, it would be competing with neighboring Midtown Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Roswell, and East Cobb.
Since 2000, the northern suburbs and their anchoring cities have grown and become increasingly competitive. In East Cobb, there was an attempt at cityhood last year. While the anchoring Cumberland District is now adjourning The Battery Atlanta, the mixed-use district for the Atlanta Braves. Brookhaven, the closest city outside of the city limits (literally next door) has managed to attract would-be Buckhead families.
Both Chamblee and Doraville are undergoing several massive new projects aimed at the same potential consumers and residents as Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, and Buckhead. While nearby Dunwoody-Perimeter, already a hallmark of suburban development has plans to get even more economic development to the area.
While the biggest threat to Buckhead City would be Midtown. Midtown is the densest portion of the city, with more shovel-ready properties and newer potential projects that would undercut plans for Buckhead. Midtown has already been the capital of new commercial and residential development in the 2010s. Given its position, Midtown would stand to benefit the most of those not wanting to be in Buckhead City proper.
Problem #9: The big business community leadership wanted to stay in the union
The Buckhead business coalition and other prominent members of the business community came out in unison against the idea. Bill White and the cityhood supporters couldn’t win over the business community, ultimately leaving it without a crucial leg to stand on. The potential of newer and higher taxes plus the ancillary effects of the financial problems that come with two new cities was too much to bear.
Problem #10: The same plans to de-annex Buckhead could’ve been used against cityhood
Buckhead City’s greatest folly was assuming that a supermajority of residents and businesses wanted to separate from Atlanta. Buckhead residents who didn’t want to be a part of Buckhead City could petition, then vote out of the city. They could rejoin the union, join neighboring Sandy Springs, or become a city on their own. Putting Buckhead City in the potential same financial problems as the city of Atlanta.
7. Buckhead City wasn’t going to be a Republican-led city
TL/DR: Creating the richest city in Georgia full of Democrats would’ve been a mistake
The other problem with Buckhead City, it would be a Democrat-run city. Despite the leadership of Bill White and its supporters, the trend of Buckhead is getting bluer.
The city of Buckhead City would be ‘blue’ not ‘red’ much to the cityhood supporters’ chagrin. The biggest issue as one Republican lawmaker, State Sen. John Albers stated was that Buckhead City would be a Democrat-run city.
Buckhead is Democrat-leaning, which doesn’t always equate to liberal
Buckhead residents didn’t believe in the dog whistle politics of Bill White nor the out-of-district lawmakers sponsoring the bill. But they do represent an Atlanta that wants similar goals. Buckhead would be a return to the heyday of the 1980s and 1990s style of conservative Democratic politics. A politick that overlaps with typical points of support from conservative Republicans but with a greater emphasis on the civil rights and personal protections of the Democratic Party.
Via The Saporta Report: A blue Buckhead is cityhood’s overlooked challenge - 2/14/2022
Election Day brought more bad news for the Buckhead cityhood movement, as its endorsed local candidates all lost and the neighborhood continued voting blue in major races…
…The Buckhead City Committee (BCC), the group advocating cityhood, endorsed five local candidates — all Republicans who lost to Democrats. Among them were BCC President Sam Lenaeus, defeated in Georgia House District 55 by Igna Willis, and Christian Zimm, the group’s communications VP, who lost an impossible challenge to 5th District Congresswoman Nikema Williams, the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia…
…In ticket-topping races, Buckhead continued to vote reliably blue. Democrat Stacey Abrams, as she did in 2018, again beat Republican Brian Kemp in Buckhead’s vote for governor, this time with 52.3 percent. Democrat Raphael Warnock, the incumbent U.S. senator, trounced Republican challenger Herschel Walker in the neighborhood, 61 percent to 36.8 percent.
Continued…
Split-ticket voting or ballot-blanking were evident in Buckhead’s Republican-heavy western areas with Trumpian politics apparently continuing to be a factor.
This is a Democratic base (center, center-left), not a liberal or progressive one. Buckhead residents support law and order policing, support ‘Cop City’, support the upcoming redevelopment of the Fulton County Jail, and believe the uptick in crime is necessary to address those issues, even if by unpopular means.
8 . What is the future of Buckhead? Atlanta?
TL/DR: Despite the second defeat of cityhood, Atlanta is still in unfamiliar territory
For Buckhead, enjoy the next 12 months, everything is in play for their needs. 2024 is too risky to project the political climate.
Buckhead can win by having a trifecta of state-level GOP supporters including the Governor to get needs met, a city council that has zero leverage currently, and a direct connection to the Biden administration. Now is the time for another Sam Massell-like figure who can interweave all of these advantages while the window is open. Who that person is (if one ever emerges) has yet to be seen.
For Atlanta, it’s less clear.
The union stays together…it may even expand! Buckhead gets even more power than it has ever had, but the marketplace is different now. This current city council has been relatively successful in hearing new ideas, moving fast at addressing issues, and a mix of members that is closer to the makeup of the varying factions of Atlanta.
But due to the issues of the continued perceptions of lawlessness and a rise in crime, all of these gains are not being heard by the average resident. If Atlanta wants to level up from a tier 3/4-city to a solid 2, it’s got to manage its reputation better. Cop City, crime, and cityhood are all seriously holding it back.
For Mayor Dickens, he has to continue to be a poker player.
Dickens must continue to keep his long-term plans and dealings closer to the chest. He has to continue to several disparate groups all wanting different things. APD/APDF’s ‘Cop City’ plans Buckhead’s policing needs, his own affordable housing goals, Atlanta Housing’s public housing redevelopment plans, and how to address homelessness while playing nice with Kemp and state GOP. Dickens’s played both the Cop City and Buckhead Cityhood plans correctly, he’s going to need to keep that going for the next two years before his re-election in 2025.
Dickens's other issue of how to keep the prosperity bomb of development in Atlanta without ticking off its stakeholders. A prosperity bomb that started under former mayor Kasim Reed but is now facing an issue of continuing Atlanta’s penchant for sweetheart deals for more steadfast leadership. That could mean ending cheap land deals, taxing premium property owners including corporations—the same groups who backed Cop City but pushed against Buckhead cityhood.
For Bill White, it’s likely he goes back to fundraising or continues to cash in on his growing national fame.
2024 looks to be a record haul for the GOP as Ron DeSantis, the presumed GOP nominee for president has already started fundraising. Trump is also running again in 2024, giving some opportunity to potentially work on both efforts in some capacity. Bill White will be back.
For Buckhead Cityhood supporters, Cityhood could still be back, albeit with a longer timetable.
For reference, the cityhood effort that started this all, Sandy Springs had its own efforts take nearly 40 years to complete. Despite this current defeat, there is still the possibility that in a later term, this could happen again. Maybe after Kemp leaves in 2026 especially if it’s a Trump-like Burt Jones who becomes the next governor. Republicans are always playing chess, while the Dems play checkers.
The likelier strategy is to let this sit on the back burner until 1) Burt Jones runs for re-election, as Lt. Governor in 2026, 2) Jones (or another cityhood supporter) becomes Governor, 3) the cityhood supporters get more Republicans in either the state House or the Senate to again vote on it in the future, 4) potentially launch court battles circumventing the state, and 5) all of the above.
Next: How Buckhead Cityhood birthed ‘Cop City’
Buckhead Cityhood is making fewer dollars and even less sense.
-KJW
Thank you for the insightful and well researched article. I did not know about the Peyton Road blockade and appreciate the opportunity to learn this history. Sadly, efforts to fight integration continue in more nuanced forms today. I posted a thread with excerpts from a research article on the topic here: https://twitter.com/HumbertoGS/status/1634731929881788417?s=20
Great research and reporting. You are the King 👑