The AJC reports that Marietta has canceled its decade-long tradition of daytime “Concerts on the Square”.  Why?

…few of the city and county employees headquartered just blocks away ever showed up with store-bought fare. In their place came moms toting dancing toddlers, said Mike Gabler, a city parks official.

“It rapidly turned into a moms’ day out type of thing,” he said.

Businesses complained about the parking spaces lost to the concert.

…Stores and restaurants initially embraced the idea, thinking it would boost their bottom line. But it didn’t turn out that way.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reported on this latest Forbes ranking yesterday, but I didn’t bite because honestly I’m getting a little tired with these things.  But hey, when your city ranks as #1 most toxic in the country, I guess that’s worth mentioning, right?

However, Atlanta could have never achieved such an elevated position without the help of a few neighbors.  From the Forbes article…

Crowded urban areas are often thought of as the most polluted, but the latter isn’t always caused by the former. While the Atlanta metro area takes top honors for toxicity, don’t blame the city alone. The Atlanta metro includes the cities of Sandy Springs and Marietta, the sites of chemical plants, metal coaters and concrete factories. The cities have toxic-release levels equal at or higher than those Atlanta, in spite of populations that are 15% and 13% the size of Atlanta’s, respectively.

“Hey you kids!  Get off my lawn!   No, seriously get off the lawn…that soil will melt your sneakers!”

Thanks to Eric for bringing this back onto my radar.