When Sandy Springs became the first of metro Atlanta’s new cities, it pioneered a novel way to run local government, with services delivered by companies and just a handful of public employees.

The outsourced model of government soon became the template for each city that followed. Those new communities sought professional management of parks, business licensing, courts and more.

But 12 years into the cityhood movement, these young municipalities are straying from their original, rigid reliance on privatized government.

“It wasn’t all that it promised to be,” former Brookhaven Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams said.

To read more about the privatization model, and what cities are doing, read the full story only at myAJC.com.

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Republican Derek Dooley, who is running for U.S. Senate, holds an event outside incumbent Jon Ossoff’s office in Atlanta on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

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