Chief Booker sends in this sad story and call for help…

I haven’t blogged in a while but I just wanted to share with our community a terrible event that occurred last Sunday night (May 16) . Decatur Police Officer Amy Hall’s house was completely lost due to a fire. She and her family lost everything but no one was injured. She was able to retrieve all but one of her pets from inside. She was in the process of packing her belongings from her residence in Walton County and relocating here in the City of Decatur. She has spoken at many events here in the city including at our Citizens Public Safety graduation.

We have set up an account in her name at the Decatur First Bank with the help of Judy Turner and Ann Berg. Officer Hall is a great police officer but more importantly she is a great person. Please think about her and her family during this stressful time in her life. Thanks for allowing me to share this with you all.

Sincerely, Chief Booker

I can’t republish the photo here because of copyright protections, but there’s a great photograph from 1898, showing the deconstruction of the DeKalb Courthouse built in 1843, on the Atlanta History Center’s online photo collection.  The courthouse was replaced with the larger version we know today (though I believe the current building is the second iteration of that building, as the first was destroyed by fire).

Note that the building is clearly being dismantled with reuse of the materials in mind, instead of an outright demolition.  Old school reuse!

Also of note: the gentleman waving on the roof.

h/t for the site: Pecanne Log

Many of us agree that Atlanta has its problems.  Heck, we probably wouldn’t have much to talk about if we were as satisfied with Atlanta as many are with Decatur.

And many of those problems revolve around “infrastructure” and a general lack of foresight up at the Capitol.

In a recent article on “Newgeography”, titled “Is It Game Over For Atlanta?“, author Aaron Renn argues that recent declines of “in-migration” expose Atlanta’s short-comings in a post-construction boom era.  And compared to other late 20th century boom-towns like Dallas and Houston, Atlanta’s growth is slowing.  This leads Renn to the conclusion that Atlanta’s life-cycle may be at “maturity”, soon to be out-classed by Dallas and Houston, along with smaller regional up-starts like Charlotte.

But after a couple decades of unprecedented growth, I’m not sure if a population slowdown is such a bad thing.  Such times allow a city to come down from its building euphoria and allows it time to reassess.

So while I agree with Renn that it’s clearly time for Atlanta to decide what sort of city it wants to be in the 21st century, I choose to be more optimistic…probably because I actually live here.  Atlanta’s growth may be slowing, but perhaps its a necessary step to get political leadership to look for a new path of development incentives and infrastructure improvements beyond growing at the fringes.

Thanks to TeeRus and Brad for pointing out this article!

Another Decatur Citizen Survey question…

In the future, the City may be considering expanding the City limits by no more than one square mile, with the expectation that existing service levels for the City and the City Schools of Decatur would be maintained or improved and that annexation would be financially positive after the first two years.  To what extent would you support or oppose an annexation that met the above criteria?

• Strongly Support: 22%
• Somewhat Support: 53%
• Somewhat Oppose: 15%
• Strongly Oppose: 9%