The 'Atlanta metropolitan area', commonly referred to as 'Metro Atlanta' in
Georgia, is the
ninth-largest metropolitan area in the
United States and consists of 28 counties in Georgia. According to the
2000 Census, the metropolitan area had a
population of 4,247,981, though the 2006 Census estimate shows 5,478,667 people living in the area. According to the 2006 population estimates, the 28-county Atlanta metropolitan area is currently the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States based on numerical gains. The city of
Atlanta is only the 35th-largest city in the country, largely due to the area's patterns of
urban sprawl and the city's inability to annex as have such cities as
Charlotte,
San Diego, and
Phoenix. Atlanta's
combined statistical area, or CSA, had a population in 2000 of 4,584,234. As of July 1, 2006 the population of the CSA is estimated to be 5,478,667.
According to the
ranking of world cities undertaken by the
Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network and based on the level of presence of global corporate service organizations, Atlanta is considered a "Gamma World City."
Counties
★ Barrow County (63,702)
★ Bartow County (91,226)
★ Butts County (23,561)
★ Carroll County (107,325)
★ Cherokee County (195,327)
★ Clayton County (271,240)
★ Cobb County (679,325) |
★ Coweta County (115,291)
★ Dawson County (20,643)
★ DeKalb County (723,602)
★ Douglas County (119,557)
★ Fayette County (106,671)
★ Forsyth County (150,968)
★ Fulton County (960,009) |
★ Gwinnett County (757,104)
★ Hall County (165,771)
★ Haralson County (28,616)
★ Heard County (11,472)
★ Henry County (178,033)
★ Jasper County (13,624)
★ Lamar County (16,679) |
★ Meriwether County (22,881)
★ Newton County (91,451)
★ Paulding County (121,530)
★ Pickens County (29,640)
★ Pike County (16,801)
★ Rockdale County (80,332)
★ Spalding County (62,185) |
★ Walton County (79,388) |
Anchor City
★
Atlanta
Major airport
★
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
==
Edge Cities==
★
Sandy Springs/
Dunwoody
★
Cumberland
★
Kennesaw
★
Marietta
★
Smyrna
★
Alpharetta
Major Suburbs
These are communities with more than 10,000 inhabitants.
Minor Suburbs
These are communities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
Other Communities in the Metro Area
These are communities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
Government and politics
Georgia has the smallest average county size of any state which operates county governments. This focuses government more locally but allows greater conflict between jurisdictions. The first significant inter
government agency in metro Atlanta was the
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which runs MARTA. Alongside other factors, problems associated with the inner city of Atlanta (
crime,
poverty, racism, poor public school performance, etc) influenced Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton county voters to refuse MARTA into their respective counties during the
1970s, decisions which have permanently altered the region-wide transportation network and community demographic ever since.
The
Atlanta Regional Commission is so far the closest that the area has come to a
metropolitan government. It only approves projects deemed to have an impact beyond the immediate area in which they are placed. The
Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is somewhat of a cross between ARC and MARTA, searching mainly for
alternative transportation such as buses and trains. GRTA also operates
XPress buses from counties that have otherwise refused to join in
public transport initiatives, and could operate
commuter rail service in the future.
There has been increased interest in the past few months about creating a regional government to coordinate efforts among local governments, especially regarding metro transportation.(http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/legis07/stories/2007/01/05/transportation.html)
Business and commerce
Transportation
Metro Atlanta is served by six major
interstate highway routes to and from the city.
I-75 is the busiest and carries a great deal of
truck traffic, running south-southeast to
Macon and onward to
Florida and northwest to
Chattanooga (and I-575 to
Canton).
I-85 runs southwest to
Auburn and
Montgomery (and I-185 to
Columbus), and northeast to
Greenville/
Spartanburg and
Charlotte (and I-985 to
Gainesville).
I-20 runs east to
Augusta and
Columbia, and west to
Anniston and
Birmingham.
I-285 encircles the city, and is called the Perimeter. I-75/85 is joined through
downtown Atlanta, called the
Downtown Connector. I-675 joins I-75 in the south metro to the southeastern end of I-285.
Georgia 400 runs north to
Alpharetta, then somewhat northeast to
Dahlonega in the
mountains. The
GDOT had originally planned to connect 400 and 675 as I-475, but this was cancelled, as was east-west
Interstate 420 and
Interstate 485
MARTA operates
rapid transit in Fulton and Dekalb counties, while Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton counties operate their own
buses with no current
rail transit. Plans are underway for commuter rail and bus rapid transit (BRT), though these are some years away. The first commuter rail line would run south of the city, eventually extended to
Lovejoy and possibly
Hampton, Georgia near
Atlanta Motor Speedway. The
Northwest Corridor HOV/BRT project from
GRTA aims to add
HOV lanes to I-75 and I-575 for cars and BRT, adding new lanes and exits, as well as lanes for tractor-trailers only.
There are many historic roads across the area, named after
its mills and
early ferries, and
the bridges later built to replace the ferries.
Pace's Ferry is perhaps the best known.
Currently, I-75 is 15 lanes wide north of the Windy Hill Interchange (8 northbound, 7 southbound), and as such, is the widest freeway in the United States. There are plans to expand the freeway from I-285 northward to the Wade Green Interchange to 26 lanes (13 lanes both northbound and southbound). Construction costs are expected to be about 10 billion dollars and it should take about 15 years to complete.
The intersection of I-285 and Georgia 400 (a freeway running from Atlanta to Cumming and Dahlonega) is slated to become the biggest stack interchange in the world, which will encompass Collector Distributor lanes, as well as 130 foot flyover lanes, from 285 to 400, and from 400 to 285. Construction costs are expected to be around 2 billion dollars.
Communications
The area is the 'world's largest toll-free calling zone' and has three
telephone area codes.
404, which originally covered all of northern
Georgia until
1992, now covers mostly the area inside the
Perimeter (Interstate 285). In
1995, the
suburbs were put into
770, and
678 was overlaid onto both in
1998, requiring mandatory ten-digit dialing even for local calls under
FCC rules.
Cellphones, originally only 404, may now have any local area code regardless of where in the region they were issued. Confusingly, 470 will be the next area code, overlaid as was 678.
Atlanta enjoys the world's biggest fiber optic bundle, and was America's first city to employ ten digit dialing, which was begun by
BellSouth right before the 1996 Centennial Atlanta Olympic Games.
Major
fiber-optic lines and
oil and
natural gas pipelines cross the area, running from the
Gulf coast,
Texas, and
Louisiana to the population centers of the
northeastern U.S.
Retail centers
Atlanta is a city known in
the South for its many shopping areas. The Atlanta area is home to one of the South's largest shopping malls, the
Mall of Georgia, which is located in nearby Gwinnett County.
The other larger shopping establishments in Metro Atlanta include:
★
Arbor Place Mall, located in Douglasville, the 4th largest mall in the state of Georgia, and major retail hub in Atlanta's western Suburbs. Home to anchor stores
Macy's,
Parisian,
Sears,
J.C. Penney, and
Dillard's.
★
Atlantic Station
★
Cumberland Mall
★
Discover Mills, a large outlet shopping mall located in Gwinnett County
★
Greenbriar Mall, a regional mall in Southwest Atlanta
Macy's,
Burlington Coat Factory.
★
Gwinnett Place Mall
★
Lenox Square, a large 3-level shopping center that is home to some 250 retailers and restaurants that is located in
Buckhead. The anchors of Lenox Square include
Macy's,
Bloomingdales, and
Neiman-Marcus. This is the first mall to be opened in the state of Georgia.
[2]
★
Phipps Plaza, an upscale shopping center also located in Buckhead. This mall is considered Atlanta's most upscale shopping center with 100+ stores along with
Nordstrom,
Parisian and
Saks Fifth Avenue as anchors.
[3]
★
Mall at Stonecrest
★
North DeKalb Mall
★
North Point Mall
★
Northlake Mall
★
Perimeter Mall
★
Town Center at Cobb
★
Union Station (formerly Shannon Mall) Macy's Sears
★
The Gallery at South DeKalb (South DeKalb Mall)
★ The Pavilion in Fayette County (the largest shopping center in Georgia at over 1.8 million square feet
★
Southlake Mall
★
Cobb Galleria
★
Underground Atlanta
★
The Mall West End
★ The Mall at Peachtree
Natural features
Geography and geology
The area sprawls across the low
foothills of the
Appalachian Mountains to the north and the
piedmont to the south. The northern and western suburbs tend to be significantly more
hilly than the southern and eastern suburbs.
An extinct
fault line called the
Brevard Fault runs roughly parallel to the
Chattahoochee River, but its last movements were apparently
prehistoric. Still, minor
earthquakes do rattle the area occasionally, the last one in
April 2003 coming from the northwest in northeastern Alabama. While many people slept through the 5
AM quake, it caused a minor panic in others completely unaware of what was happening. A magnitude 4.6 such as this occurs about every 30 to 40 years in the region.
Weather and climate
Atlanta has a
humid subtropical climate with four distinct
seasons. January daily lows averaging around 33°F (1°C) and highs averaging near 52°F (11°C), but often reaching 70-75°F (21-24°C). Snow is uncommon, with an average annual snowfall of about 2.1 inches (5 cm), falling mostly in January and early February. Summers, by contrast, are consistently hot and humid, with July mornings averaging 72°F (22°C) and afternoons averaging 89°F (32°C), slight breezes, and typically a 20-30% chance of afternoon thunderstorms.During the summer afternoon t-storms,temperatures may suddenly drop to 70-75 degrees with locally heavy rainfall. Average annual rainfall is about 50.2
inches (1370 mm) typically with late winter and early spring (as well as July) being the wettest and fall (especially October) being the driest. Despite having far fewer rainy days, average yearly rainfall is higher here than in the
Seattle area, especially due to heavy thunderstorms and occasional
tropical depressions.
Spring weather is pleasant but variable, as cold fronts often bring strong or severe thunderstorms to almost all of the eastern and central U.S. Pollen counts tend to be extraordinarily high in the spring, regularly exceeding 2000 particles per cubic meter in April and causing hay fever. Pine pollen leaves a fine yellow-green film on everything for much of that month. The rain helps wash out Atlanta's abundant oak, pine, and grass pollens, and fuels beautiful blooms from native
dogwood trees, as well as
azaleas,
forsythias,
magnolias, and
peach trees (both flowering-only and fruiting). The city-wide floral display runs during March and April, and inspires the Dogwood Festival, one of Atlanta's largest. Fall is also pleasant, with less rain and fewer storms, lower humidity, and leaves changing color from late October to mid-November, especially during drier years.
The area's geography affects the weather as well. An
anticyclone over the
Northeastern U.S. will blow cold air over the warmer
Atlantic Ocean, forming a
wedge or
marine layer up against the mountains. This east or northeast
wind will often blow down into the metro area in winter or even spring (sometimes fall and very rarely summer), dramatically lowering the temperature and bringing
clouds and often
fog or
mist, along with a swift breeze. The temperature
gradient across the sprawling metro Atlanta can be as much as 20°F or 10°C, occasionally even more. In winter this can be a curse, bringing
freezing rain to exposed objects on the north and/or east sides of town, and occasionally very dangerously to the ground and roads. Later in the spring however, it can be a great blessing, as it often protects the area from
severe thunderstorms and
tornadoes, with the cool air acting like a
fire extinguisher to the storms. The wedge may occasionally go the entire way through central Georgia and even into Alabama in the strongest conditions, while still leaving areas to the northwest much warmer than the metro area.
Major weather events
The highest recorded temperatures at Atlanta were 105°F (41°C) on three days in the extraordinarily-hot July
1980. The lowest recorded temperatures were -6°F (-21°C) and -8°F (-22°C) on January 20 and 21 of
1985, and -9°F (-23°C) on February 13 of
1899. There was also an official record of -10°F (-23°C) in 1985 in
Marietta. The rainiest month ever was July of 1994, when
Tropical Storm Alberto dumped massive amounts of rain on parts of the state and the south metro area, bringing 17.71 inches or 450mm at Atlanta, over three times a normal July.
Hurricane Opal brought sustained
tropical storm conditions to the area one night in early October
1995, bringing down hundreds of
trees and causing widespread
power outages, after soaking the area with rain for two days prior. The western metro area caught the worst of the storm, gusting to nearly 70 MPH (just over 110km/h) officially at Marietta.
A
blizzard (see:
1993 North American Storm Complex) caught much of the Southeast off-guard in
1993, dumping four inches (10cm) at the Atlanta airport on
March 13, about twice that in the northern suburbs, and many times that in the mountains. Some people were awakened by
thunder and
lightning in a very rare
thundersnow event. The only other recorded storm of comparable severity was in February
1899. Several areas of Northern Cobb County recorded over 15 inches of snow. It is widely regarded as the snow event of the century for Atlanta, and is referred to as the Storm of the Century.
On January 2-3, 2002 3 inches of snow fell.
Environment and ecology
The area's prolific rains are drained by many different
streams and creeks. The main
watershed is that of the
Chattahoochee River, running northeast to southwest. The further northwestern suburbs drain into the
Etowah River via the
Little River and
Lake Allatoona. The southern suburbs are drained by the
Flint River, and the east-southeastern ones by the
Oconee River and
Yellow River.
By 2005, the metro area was using 360 million gallons of water per day (about 80 gallons per person per day).
The massive
deforestation brought by excessive
land development has had a significant impact on area watersheds. They now flood far more rapidly and to a much greater extent than prior to development. This has pushed many people into
flood plains, something they often find out only when it is too late. A very few
jurisdictions have begun to implement a
stormwater fee, though the fees are not yet based on the actual amount of damaging
runoff each property produces, mainly from
pavement and lack of tree cover and natural
leaf litter.
Flora
The native
forest canopy is mainly
oak,
hickory,
tuliptree, and
pine, with some
sweetgum, particularly on the southside. Underneath, the
flowering dogwood is very common, and the
black cherry is quite prolific, with
mulberry popping up sometimes as well. Shrubby plants include
blackberry,
horsechestnut,
sumac, and sometimes
hawthorn.
Virginia creeper and
poison ivy are common
vines. The
Yellow Daisy is a
wildflower native only to the area around
Stone Mountain.
Common garden plants include dogwood,
azalea,
hydrangea,
maples,
pin oak,
redtip photinia,
holly,
juniper,
white pine,
magnolia,
Bradford pear,
forsythia,
liriope (
mondograss) and
English ivy.
Lawns can be either cool-season
grasses like
fescue and
rye, or warm-season like
zoysia and
bermudagrass which turn brown in late fall.
By far the most notorious
introduced species is
kudzu, a highly
invasive species from
Japan.
Wisteria has also escaped in some places, and
Japanese honeysuckle is quite common. Chinese
Privet has surpassed all these as the
most invasive non-native, yet it is still sold as a garden plant.
Fauna
Among
mammals, the
eastern gray squirrel is by far the most ubiquitous, stealing
birdseed from the
bird feeders which many locals put up. Small brown
rabbits are common, but it is relatively rare to hear of them doing any damage.
Opossum,
raccoons,
foxes, and now even small
coyotes are sometimes found, especially where the
habitat destruction of new development has forced them out.
Snakes are rare, but
tree frogs are easily heard in early summer.
The most common birds are the
American Crow,
European (or Common) Starling,
House Sparrow,
Northern Cardinal,
Purple Finch,
Carolina Chickadee,
Tufted Titmouse,
Blue Jay,
Nuthatch, and
American Kestrel. Various
woodpeckers can be seen in forested lots, including the
Red-headed Woodpecker,
Norther Flicker (also known as the "red-shafted flicker"),
Downy Woodpecker and occasionally others. The
American Goldfinch is present in winter, and the
Ruby-throated Hummingbird in summer.
See also
★
United States metropolitan area
★
I-85 Corridor
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