Metro Atlanta

==Government and politics==
[[File:MariettaGeorgia.jpg|right|thumbnail|200px|Downtown Marietta's historic [[town square]]]]
In geographic terms, Georgia has the smallest average county size of any state.{{cn|date=December 2022}} This focuses government more locally but allows greater conflict between multiple jurisdictions, each with its own agenda.

The first significant [[intergovernmental agency]] in metro Atlanta was the [[Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority]], which runs the MARTA [[public transportation]] system. Alongside other factors such as [[racism|race]] and [[socioeconomic class|class]], as well as a lack of planning and perceived lack of need, problems associated with the [[inner city]] of Atlanta ([[crime]], [[poverty]], and poor [[public school (government funded)|public school]] performance) influenced Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton county voters to refuse to allow construction of MARTA into their respective counties during the 1970s. These decisions resulted in permanent effects on [[land development]] in the region, making use of private [[automobile]]s even more of a necessity.{{Citation needed|date=January 2014}}

The [[Atlanta Regional Commission]] is so far the closest that the area has come to a [[metropolitan government]]. It approves only those projects deemed to have a positive effect beyond the immediate area in which they are to be constructed. The [[Georgia Regional Transportation Authority]] is somewhat of a cross between ARC and MARTA, working to improve mobility, air quality, and land use practices in the region. GRTA also operates [[Georgia Regional Transportation Authority#''''Xpress'''' service|Xpress buses]] from 11 counties, and could operate [[commuter rail]] service in the future. Currently, plans for commuter rail and eventual [[intercity rail]] (including the long-proposed but still unfunded [[Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal]]) are the responsibility of the [[Georgia Rail Passenger Authority]], which receives almost no funding.

Since 2007 proposals have been floated to allow new multi-county [[sales tax]]es, in addition to existing county sales taxes for roads, to pay for regional transportation initiatives.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/legis07/stories/2007/01/05/transportation.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070222144029/http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/legis07/stories/2007/01/05/transportation.html |archive-date=2007-02-22 |title=Recent transportation stories}}</ref>

'''Politics'''

Due to demographic shifts and population increases in the region, Metro Atlanta has trended toward the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], so much so that Democrats have been able to win statewide due to turnout from this area. In 2020, [[Joe Biden]] won the area by 15.4 points, enough to narrowly capture the state's 16 electoral votes.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

In [[2020–21 United States Senate election in Georgia|2020]] and [[2022 United States Senate election in Georgia|2022]], Democrats [[Jon Ossoff]] and [[Raphael Warnock]] successfully won full terms to represent the state in the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]], mainly due to winning by large margins in Metro Atlanta.{{cn|date=March 2024}}