James_May-June_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 52
better than the local officials who
have to answer for it from neighbors and fellow residents.
But local challenges deserve
local solutions, backed by state
support, not uniform standards
that sound reasonable in Atlanta
but land wrong everywhere else. A
policy designed for Pooler, which
has added 40 percent to its population in a decade, looks nothing like
what works in Albany, where the
focus is on downtown revitalization
through a creative local financing
tool. The how looks entirely different from city to city.
Cities do their best work when
the state gives them the right
tools to address their specific local
challenges. The Rural Workforce
Housing Initiative helped cities
like Cairo finance workforce housing they couldn’t have built alone.
GEFA financing gave Winder and
Auburn the means to pursue a
regional water solution nobody else
would have thought to try. Cities
52
JAMES M AY/JU N E 2 02 6
in Georgia’s growth corridors are
managing explosive growth; cities
in rural Georgia are trying to attract
it. Those aren’t variations on the
same problem.
LOVE OF PLACE
In 2003, Senoia’s historic downtown had five businesses on Main
Street. Scott Tigchelaar and a
partner purchased 22 vacant lots
there and made a deliberate decision not to fill them with whatever
the market would bear. He calls it
his 401(k), a lifetime investment, not
a transaction. He was careful about
what he built and how it looked, and
the downtown that grew around
his work now has more than 100
businesses. “It’s taken 20 years to
become an overnight success,” he
said recently. He became mayor this
past January because he kept hearing the city couldn’t afford basic
things residents wanted done.
That’s local governance at its
best, where people step up for the
places they love. Georgia has 536
cities with people like that. They
deserve partnership, not preemption and second-guessing.
Georgia’s strength has never
come from uniformity but instead
from ingenuity, the drive of its people, and the variety of the places
we each call home. Our cities are
the incubators of new ideas and job
creation, and shape the neighborhoods, parks, and downtowns that
define our quality of life, but no two
are the same. And those differences are shaped by the people who
choose to lead them.
If you feel called to make your
city even better, show your love
by action, not just reaction, and
consider running for local office
like Scott Tigchelaar did. I promise
you... it’s harder than it looks, but
it’s worth your time.
Larry Hanson is the CEO and Executive
Director of the Georgia Municipal
Association.
