I’ve been around Polk County long enough to have preached the following rant to anyone who will listen to me, and sure enough it is starting to come to pass: growth is coming this way.
There are just so many places with easily buildable land to go, and the last stop within the state of Georgia and close enough to I-20 and I-75 is right here in Polk. Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf time and again, my prediction is coming to pass. Slower than I expected, but here it comes.
I wrote yesterday about a Tuesday meeting of the Rockmart City Council to hear a request to annex property within the city limits and change the zoning of said property to allow for a 286-home residential development being proposed by Artisan Built Communities. They are buying a good chunk of land between Walmart and Triangle Foods in Rockmart, and have added some also purchased by the Rockmart Development Authority.
This goes along with housing projects happening all around the county, from the border with Bama to the Paulding line on Vinson Mountain, up 101, and down to Haralson. Everywhere it seems the hammers are swinging and the latest style of white paint with black trim sprouts like weeds in the garden.
I remember one of the few columns I penned while at the paper – early on in my time at the helm of the Standard Journal – I wrote about growth, and how we needed to begin to pay attention way back when to the forthcoming push of Metro Atlanta into the region.
The impending years have seen slower growth than expected, but it has come in the form of hundreds of new families a year and new businesses large and small choosing to locate in Polk County. Chick-fil-A was followed by many others – Popeye’s, Martin’s, Jack’s, Marco’s Pizza, etc.
Reinvestment in the community from many of the long-term industrial partners has yielded positive results overall as well, though some may argue otherwise. Job growth in any community whether it be 10 or 1,000 is good for everyone in the long run. The Meggitt’s and HONs of the world have in large part been the ones who help ultimately drive this growth by putting their money where their mouth is on buying new equipment and making new hires, for example.
There have been rocky times within the past 10 years I’ve worked in Polk County, and now more than five that I’ve lived here. Various local issues have caused headaches aplenty, and tragedies have left deeper wounds all across the area.
Despite steps forward and back, Polk County is making progress along the way and we are time and again making a name for this strange and wonderful place we all call home. The downside of all the progress is now people want to move in and become neighbors to call this place home too.
Consequences aplenty follow people moving into the area from all corners of life. Everything from increased traffic to a proliferation of Dollar Generals is a result of the changes that have happened over the past decade.
A brief tangential aside:
Anecdotally I would say that criminal activity has come along with some of this growth as well. I haven’t done a statistical review of this at all, but I look at arrests every weekday morning and can say from when I started to now, things are probably roughly even to where we were from Christmas 2013 to the present, with the caveat that the data might not play out the same story. The perception that crime goes up I think is more relative to the amount that reporters like myself rely on crime stories to fill news holes, since they are always a popular option for gaining readership without much effort on the writer’s part.
The other downside to growth and something I’ve been ruminating on internally for a while and comes up constantly when people complain about whatever new announcement is being made. I blame nostalgia for this sentiment.
I’ve spent too many hours of my life ranting and raving about how people get stuck into the idea of “it’s been done this way forever” or “that store has always been on that corner” kind of thinking that comes alongside change. It drives me up the wall to hear the words “back in my day” or “remember when” followed by some specific event or person everyone is expected to feel the same about as if the slate has been wiped clean by the passage of time. A fondness for “the good ol’ days” argument in a variety of forms is prevalent in our culture and one I hear a lot.
Nostalgia for days long past and memories shaded by time’s speedy march forward does its best to block the mind from accepting progress for what it is in this particular moment in which we live. The emotion is understandable, and even I dip into the well of “better days,” though usually that comes up more during college football season.
Yet we can’t live in the past, and we can only do the best we can to prepare for the future. The moments we face in the here and now are what matters the most to the majority of people out there as they get up to go to work or school aren’t thinking about global issues or political stances. They are wondering what’s for breakfast and pulling their pants up one leg at a time. So since we can’t predict the future, we look to try and extend the reach of the past.
Polk County finds itself in a place where nostalgia is going to run into progress in a hard way. Those who want to retain the old ways will ultimately lose out to shiny and new, though I’ve learned the sheen wears off fast in these parts and people are easily swayed by the next item in front of them. The equilibrium eventually settles for everyone.
So this is the crossroads we find ourselves at for the moment: the growth is gaining some speed now, and Polk could suddenly be swamped with many more families than previously expected. How will the schools, public safety, infrastructure and so much more respond to these forthcoming changes ahead?
The last thing I think anyone wants to see is the same kind of wild boom of the past three decades that has happened from Gordon County to Cobb on the I-75 corridor, along 278 into Paulding, through Temple and Villa Rica on I-20, and even down to LaGrange on I-85 and points all around the Metro Area. Boom times seem good when they are kicking off, but then the bust happens. The consequences of so many new people moving in make it difficult for the old-timers to handle all the newcomers. It is bad news all around that I don’t want to have to report on when we get to that point.
So I think this is where I stand as this long editorial item comes to a close: growth is good. Growth needs to be managed appropriately. Leadership needs to work on infrastructure issues looming ahead, such as water, sewer, and roads.
The clock is ticking, and I hope we don’t run out of time.
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