Morning Metro: DHS Media Fest, Solar Panel Bill Still Lives, and Georgia is Sorta Happy
Decatur Metro | February 28, 2012 | 9:31 am
- CSD Student Media Festival Tuesday March 6th [CSD]
- Recycle household hazardous waste in DeKalb on March 31st [AJC]
- I-85 tolls hit new high [AJC]
- Solar panel bill gets new life in GA Senate [PBA]
- Redevelopment of Jekyll Island scheduled to begin [Curbed]
- Purdue’s “Go Fish” Education Center “flops” in first year [Macon Telegraph]
- Well-Being Index: Georgia happier than many neighbors [Atlantic Cities]
Well-being Index: Fascinating. It’s easy for me to understand Vermont–I’d feel good if I lived there too. Not as easy to understand North Dakota. Armchair analysis:
– I guess cold is good for well-being since all of the dark green states are in the northern half of the US, with the exception of Hawaii.
– Flat and cold is evidently even better–hence ND, SD, MN, IA, NE, and KS.
– D.C. and Boston seem to have an aura of well-being around them. Detroit radiates the opposite.
– Nevada is doing something wrong in the middle of all that Western well-being.
If the data were more granular, I wonder if City of Decatur would be a dark green dot in Georgia.
That map is less about geography or meteorology and more about demography.
Elaborate! Because I keep going back to North Dakota—no matter what the demographic group–I assume it’s mostly white folks and Native Americans there, with an age distribution shift to the right (older), I cannot figure out the sense of well-being! I know the characters in the movie “Fargo” demonstrated stoic optimism and well-being there but the scenery sure didn’t!
And what is wrong with the demographics of Nevada that it bucks the Western trend of high well-beingness! Personally, I find it a bit dry and sterile in landscape if bleakly majestic but I would think all that gambling would make people happy! Maybe it’s the Mob that’s got folks down….?
Hmmph…so Sonny’s fish center flops out of the gate. Who’d a thunk?
really
Wow, you’ve got to follow the link, read the actual article, and especially run through the photo series to appreciate the humor and absurdity of this Center. It’s a cross between SNL, Dave Barry, and Lewis Grizzard. It’s bound to become an I-75 roadside tradition along the lines of “Come see Gator Land” and Stuckey’s Pecan Shoppe.
My favorite part was the quote that this Center wasn’t supposed to pay for itself. MARTA has to, but not Go Fish Georgia? This smacks of tourism promotion welfare.
I LOVE stopping at Stuckey’s. But we all knew that fish thing was a boondoggle.
Unfortunately, the solar bill has now been pulled out of committee. The powerful government regulated monopoly has exerted its influence and has decided it does not want any competition. So much for property rights and fair enterprise.
All the more reason to look at creating a city electric utility. Then we would get to move ahead, while Georgia Power hangs back in the last century.
Probably introduces more problems than it solves. Municipal utilities don’t have a great track record of success. Witness the latest mess in East Point.
A municipal utility isn’t my ideal solution either, but the powers that be are not providing much in the way of alternatives. Other states have mandated a certain percentage of power come from renewables. I don’t see that happening in GA for a long time. The other common option is through deregulation. Given the political climate in GA I would think this would be an easy push, but money talks and Georgia Power has a lot of it.
No way, man. Having lived in Boston for 20 years, I can say with absolute finality that the majority of the Massachusetts population is cranky and miserable. The only thing that makes them happy is imagining that anyone could care more about Boston than New York.
My wife is from Atlanta, and one of the main reasons we moved here was to be somewhere more civil.
That, and there’s no way in hell my kids were growing up with that accent.
At the risk of being a #19, I completely and totally agree with this entire post. I lived there too and Al is 100% correct, especially about that accent. Ugh.
Maybe one can have a high sense of well-being while being rude with a Boston accent?
Nevada is the foreclosure and suicide capital of the US. Has been #1 on the misery index the last couple of years during the current troubles. Out west is much better place, where people are happy, take care of their surroundings, and have more of a live/let live attitude. Atlanta has way too many angry people. I do not miss it. I previously was a life long GA resident.
Yes! This! Why is everyone in this city so angry?
My first inclination is to blame the anger on 2+ hour car commutes, but folks on MARTA are just as angry and rude. Whether they’re trying to run you down with their car or shoving a stroller into the back of your knees on a train platform, people in this city seem to be on the verge of killing someone.
If that’s the case, then the most important advice I can give you is: don’t move to the Northeast!
Where does all the money go, that the HOT lane must be making at that high toll? Has that been privatised?
Pricing fluctuates with demand. The more cars trying to use the lane, the higher the price goes, which reduces users and keeps the traffic flowing. When there’s little demand for the lane, the price drops to incentivize use. In theory, the lane can keep a consistent, moving stream of cars at all hours of the day by raising or lowering the price as necessary to regulate use.
As best I know, there is no private component. It’s a state project and the tolls are state revenue. Steve would probably know for sure.
It is a state project, though some of the funding came from Washington. There is no private component, partly because the project is never expected to turn a profit, and also because it was a modification to an existing road, which, BTW, was built with your and my tax money. The whole thing is another example of how all forms of public transportation, including roads, are subsidized.