Georgia Trend magazine recently asked the Georgia Municipal Association to help them identify some of Georgia’s “most successful downtown revitalizations”.

From the initial list provided, Georgia Trend chose to highlight eight downtown areas in their February issue: Blue Ridge, Columbus, Dahlonega, Decatur, Hinesville, Roswell, Savannah and Statesboro.

Here’s a snippet of the Decatur write up from the article…

The city of Decatur could give a clinic on downtown revitalization. Since the early 1980s, the city’s leaders, business owners and citizens have worked diligently to create Decatur’s small-town atmosphere with a big-city buzz. “We did a town center plan around 1982,” says Bill Floyd a longtime mayor and city commissioner. “That’s when the vision of this community started. If you go back and look at that plan, you’ll see that what’s happened in Decatur is basically what’s in the plan.”

Dagnabbit!  I was sitting on this story waiting on a response from the mayor, and Dave beat me to it.

So here’s ’tis without the mayor’s response (yet)…

Decatur mayor Bill Floyd was elected president of the Georgia Municipal Association at their association’s annual meeting yesterday.  Read all the details in the official GMA press release.  You can also listen to the mayor’s full speech to the GMA here.

The mayor has promised me a response in the next day or two regarding this and one other issue.  I’ll post as soon as I receive word.