A renewed effort to sever the whitest and wealthiest area of Atlanta from the rest of the city would have sent the region into a financial tailspin.
A group of Georgia lawmakers has revived efforts to sever the tony, upscale neighborhoods of Atlanta’s Buckhead from the rest of the city — a move that city leaders say could end up financially ruining the entire Atlanta metro region, if not the whole state.
On Monday, a state senate committee passed two bills that would allow for residents of the wealthiest and whitest areas in Atlanta to vote in November 2024 to secede from the city and create a new municipality called Buckhead City. However, the full state senate rejected the legislation Thursday evening with 33 senators voting against it. Still, the movement isn’t going anywhere: Proponents pledged to continue supporting secession in future legislative sessions.
Governor Brian Kemp’s administration had expressed constitutional concerns earlier in the week. A Feb. 28 letter to lawmakers from Kemp’s Executive Counsel David B. Dove asks lawmakers to settle dozens of questions related to how municipal bond debt will be handled, where Buckhead City students would attend school if taken out of Atlanta’s public school system, how the water and sewage system would be divided up and other uncertainties concerning parks and policing.
Bloomberg CityLab
By Brentin Mock
March 2, 2023