The Atlanta region is not so much a “region” as an unruly collection of cities and counties, each setting its own tax rates and, quite often, pursuing its own agenda. But in 2012, we will be asked to behave as a region for the first time, going to the polls in 10 counties to vote on the 1-cent sales tax referendum for transportation.
The 10 counties that will vote on the measure all have county commissions, county school boards, county thises and county thats. They also contain 65 cities, each with its requisite government: mayors, council members, clerks, etc. Guess how many city council members in the 10 counties? If you guessed 346, congratulations.
The tension is clear: Americans tend to believe that the closer you are to your government, the more likely it is to represent your interests effectively. Which is why we have all these local governments. But in a place like metropolitan Atlanta, all those governments also may act as a block to regional planning and cooperation.
“In a globally competitive world,” said Jennifer Bradley, an expert on local and state governments with the Brookings Institution in Washington, “investors don’t give a fig about the local differences that seem so important to local people.”
Take a look at how they’re preparing the list of transportation projects that we’ll vote on next year. It’s analogous to the region itself: not a single, unified vision but a great mass divided up into scores of components distributed across 10 counties.
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