Atlanta’s contributions to the region dwarf the reverse. The Atlanta region thrives because generations of Atlantans have invested in infrastructure to create a healthy and economically viable city and region. Those who think the region would thrive without Atlanta are wrong and have no evidence for their assertion. It just doesn’t work that way. Corporations and residents located outside the city limits call Atlanta home when they travel outside the region. They want to be tied to all that is good about our city - its history, arts & culture, higher education, diversity and infrastructure.
It is irrelevant and a waste of energy to play a numbers game to describe the city’s contributions to the region. Those who do so miss the point. No part of the region can survive alone and certainly can’t thrive without the other parts. To reduce the city’s contributions is to ignore well documented history which I speak to in my response (posted last week on www.atlantaga.gov ) to Margaret Newkirk’s cover story from last Sunday.
Atlanta is the home of the state capital, 18 colleges & universities, thousands of businesses and hundreds of attractions, the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the Carter Presidential Library, the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, dozens of hotels and over 525,000 residents; because of investments from every sector including local and state governments. The future of economic health for this region and city knows no geographic boundaries. Those who dwell on the negative and don’t accentuate the positive, that the world sees and knows as Atlanta, are misguided and will do serious harm to our prospects for a prosperous future.