Whatever else the Braves’ move to Cobb County may be — chiefly, a huge taxpayer subsidy of a multibillion-dollar company’s profits — it also stands to be a signal moment in the way people in metro Atlanta think about “metro Atlanta.”
The various cities and counties that make up metro Atlanta have been slow to think of themselves as a unified region with, at least at times, a single purpose. See: last year’s T-SPLOST debacle. But Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Tuesday he thinks the Braves’ move may help to change that.
Break out the fainting couches at City Hall, because I actually agree with the mayor.
His opinion and mine may diverge, though, regarding how this regionalism looks to take shape. For I suspect Monday’s news about the Braves was the first time a number of his constituents became fully aware their hub-and-spokes view of the region is an anachronism.
When the Braves released a map of their 2012 ticket buyers to demonstrate their predominance in the northern suburbs, it could have been a depiction of the region overall. From homes to jobs, the center of metro Atlanta is closer to Perimeter Mall than Turner Field, and has been for some time.
Atlanta is home to just 10 percent of the people who live in the 10-county region. More residents of Fulton County live outside Atlanta than in it.
This isn’t Atlanta-bashing; I’m a city resident myself. It’s just the facts.
A view of the region from North Avenue ignores how far north the region really sits. The T-SPLOST failed for many reasons: lack of public trust, bad timing for asking voters to OK a tax increase. But the fact Atlanta would have gotten a 140 percent return on its tax contributions, while places like Gwinnett were shortchanged more than a quarter on the dollar, was one more indication to the vote-heavy suburbs that endeavor was blind to reality.
Now, with the Braves moving to Cobb, the northern suburbs will have something important that people in Atlanta can’t ignore or dismiss as strip malls-and-sprawl, y’all (and then wonder why suburbanites resent them so much).
How Atlantans react will go a long way toward determining the future success of regionalism here.
The early returns, I’m afraid, aren’t promising. There’s the assumption, including by Reed, that Cobb will now have to embrace the kind of solutions preferred in Atlanta, such as rail transit.
Not so fast, says Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee, who insists the county is more interested in expanding its bus-based transit operation. Listen carefully, and you can almost hear Lee reminding Atlantans they could have built rail to The Ted but didn’t — and that the Braves are placing their bets with the Cobb model, not the Atlanta one.
There’s also an assumption any transit expansion would be focused on a link with Atlanta. But did you see that ticket-sales map? The team would have far more interest in pushing for better options across the top end of I-285 toward Gwinnett — and a whole lot of east-west commuters would agree.
Ultimately, I still believe the Braves’ move will promote greater ties within metro Atlanta. But only if it leads to more recognition of what metro Atlanta has actually become.
