Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said Saturday she opposes the idea of Buckhead, the city's most affluent community, breaking off and becoming its own city, saying it would go against diversity efforts of the last 50 years.

State Sen. David Adelman (D-Atlanta), who likely would have some say in Buckhead's attempt at cityhood, called the idea "half-baked."

Franklin and Adelman were responding to the initiative by the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation to split Buckhead from Atlanta.

Franklin said the city has flourished "because we have embraced our diversity over the last half-century, not because we have opposed it."

"I think [the effort] is a distraction from the real issue facing the city," she said. "The real issue facing Atlanta is how do we survive in global economy. This is talking about now. We need to be talking about the future."

Franklin, who was in Miami attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said by "diversity" she means the city's socio-economic, cultural, business and residential make-up, and was not necessarily drawing a distinction along black and white racial lines.

Adelman, chairman of the Senate Urban Affairs Committee, called the Buckhead secession idea "half-baked at best." A Buckhead cityhood bill, he said, would face especially tough sledding in the Legislature if it were to include a proposal to create a new school system.

"That would be a truly extraordinary complicating factor," said Adelman, whose committee could hear such legislation if it were introduced.

Oliver Porter, who helped found the city of Sandy Springs and is assisting Dunwoody's efforts to do the same thing, said Buckhead cityhood is not a new idea. "Ever since Sandy Springs successfully did it, people have said, 'Why not us in Buckhead?'" he said.

Sandy Springs, Milton, Johns Creek and Chattahoochee Hills Country have all broken off from Fulton County and become cities in recent years, and Dunwoody is trying to do so in DeKalb County.

Porter, however, agreed with Adelman that Buckhead would face some difficulty in the Legislature. "There are significantly more legal hurdles to overcome for Buckhead to become a city than there were for the other cities," he said. "They are part of a city. We were not."

Bert Brantley, spokesman for Gov. Sonny Perdue, said Saturday that Perdue had not been asked about the formation of a city of Buckhead, and that he would "let the legislative process play out" before he made a decision. But, historically, Perdue has not opposed the formation of new cities.

Noting that the governor signed the bills creating Johns Creek and other cities after they were passed by the Legislature, Brantley said, "his view is, how can he tell one group they can't form a city when we've already gone down this road and told others they can?"

Supporters of the Buckhead secession movement point to Atlanta's debt problems and school property tax rates as reason to break away.

Franklin said she is not opposed to discussing the idea of Buckhead breaking off on its own. "That's how we sort out our problems, by airing them," she said.

But Franklin said she favors a consolidation of cities under some kind of metropolitan governance, similar to Augusta and Jacksonville. "That's the best way for the city to address the problems that plague us — traffic, health, environment," she said.

Buckhead was annexed by the city of Atlanta in 1952, and the north side neighborhood has grown into one of the most affluent in the nation.

According to the Buckhead Business Association headed by former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, the community encompasses an area of roughly 28 square miles, has a population of about 70,000, and represents about 45 percent of the city's property and sales tax base.

It's the site of the Georgia governor's mansion, the Atlanta History Center, Lenox Square and huge multi-million dollar homes on sprawling wooded acres. It has been dubbed Beverly Hills 30305.

Franklin said discussions of what impact the neighborhood's secession from the City of Atlanta would have on finances were premature.

"I don't even think you get the financials," she said. "The question is: Are you looking at the present, or are you looking at the future of the city 25 or 30 years from now? This is not the way to look to the future."

Reaction among Buckhead's residents seemed mixed Saturday morning. Tommy Thomas, owner of Thomas Barber Shop on West Paces Ferry Road, said that the subject of leaving Atlanta has been discussed for years.

"Most people never thought it would go anywhere, but maybe it will now," said Thomas, 57, who has run his shop for 38 years. "Any time you can get out of the city of Atlanta and call your own shots that's a good thing."

At the Corner Cafe on East Paces Ferry Road and Piedmont Road, Bill Marriott, 79, who has lived in Atlanta 63 years, said he hadn't given the notion much thought.

"I would think it would be a hell of a task making a city," said Marriott, who has lived in Buckhead for 12 years. "But I never thought Sandy Springs would, either."

– Staff writer Jeremy Redmon contributed to this story.