While never the official tagline of Decatur, “Where Mayberry Meets Berkeley” seems to continually insert itself into most articles about our city that introduce it to a new audience.

Whether the persistent presence of this rogue tagline in countless Decatur-centric articles says more about the PR limitations of the city’s official tagline of “City of Homes, Schools and Places of Worship” is a whole different conversation.  For now, I’m hoping we might be able to suggest an update for the more popular, yet unofficial tagline.

If you were plugged into 1960s television culture, you’ll know that “Mayberry” was the fictional town where the Andy Griffith Show took place.  And if you plugged into 1960s political culture, you’ll know that Berkeley was once a liberal hotbed of riots and protests.

But it’s now 2011. The 1960s are slowly passing across the 50 year mark.

So, I think it might be a good idea if we at least try and update this unofficial tagline to appeal to the large majority of the earth’s population not around 50 years ago.  And who better suited to do that than the most unofficial of city blogs?