State News

A baby born in Lawrenceville today will come of age at a time when the county has more than 1 million people --- perhaps more than any county in Georgia.

That prediction --- that Gwinnett County's population will reach seven figures by 2020 --- will become the official standard it uses in its planning, county Director of Planning Steve Logan told county commissioners Tuesday.

The adjustment was needed because the 2000 census count for Gwinnett --- 588,488 --- was well ahead of projections.

"If the current trends continue and even cool down . . . we'll be approaching 1 million in 2020," Logan said.

If that happens, Gwinnett might well become the largest county in the state, edging out Fulton County. Fulton's population stands at 816,000, but its growth has been far slower than Gwinnett's in recent decades.

Gwinnett has long been one of America's fastest-growing suburbs. Turn back the clock to 1970, and just 72,349 residents were in Gwinnett, where farms were still a common sight. That same year, 608,000 people lived in Fulton. Between 1990 and 2000, more people moved to Gwinnett than any county in the state, and, though its growth rate slowed, it was still an astounding 66.7 percent for the decade.

If it were to continue at that rate, Gwinnett would reach 1 million people within about 10 years.

Logan said Gwinnett cannot sustain that growth rate and maintain the quality of schools, transportation, government services and lifestyle that has made it attractive.

Carol Hassell, head of the Gwinnett Open Land Trust, said the revised estimate underscores why county residents must demand that their commissioners change how land is used.

She said the county must continue to buy land that will be protected from builders, while encouraging denser development that differs from traditional single-family home subdivisions. One million people is "not a positive or a negative thing other than it's a call to action for us to manage our growth," she said.

© Copyright 2002 Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Canton is the latest city in the metro area considering jumping on the impact fee bandwagon to pay for costs associated with population growth, but at least one council member is stomping on the brakes.

Jo Ellen Wilson, mayor pro tem, first wants to see how Cherokee County fares in a lawsuit that is challenging the county government's impact fees on new development in unincorporated areas.

The pot of gold could have clay feet, Wilson fears.

"I think the city's going to be watching very closely what the courts are going to decide," she said. "It would be premature for us to jump in before we know exactly what we're doing."

Mayor Cecil Pruett isn't so hesitant. He said he is expecting a recommendation by March from a citizens advisory committee looking into whether to implement impact fees in Canton. It would be the first city in Cherokee County to do so.

Impact fees are one way the fast-growing city can pay for public safety, parks and recreation, open space and greenways, he said. City officials expect the population of 7,500 to triple in the next two decades.

Pruett's hoping to sidestep legal challenges by sticking strictly to the 1992 state impact fee act. "We will do it to the letter of the law," he said.

But exactly what the law allows is what's in question in Cherokee's court case, believed to be one of the first in Georgia to test impact fees.

County commissioners are under fire from builders because county fees on development in unincorporated areas are used to pay for parks, libraries and roads shared by both city and county residents. Yet, none of the county's seven cities collects fees on development within their borders.

"City residents are getting a free ride on the back of builders in the county," said Deron Hicks, Columbus-based attorney for the Greater Atlanta Homebuilders Association. He also told a three-judge Georgia Court of Appeals panel, "The most blatant case is a library the county proposes building with impact fees in the city of Woodstock."

Not so, said Mark Mahler, county attorney: "Nobody's getting a free ride." City residents help foot the bill by paying countywide property taxes and a 1 percent sales tax, he added.

"Obviously [people residing in] cities are going to get benefits. The impact fee law doesn't say they can't, only that we have to establish a rational basis for the program we came up with. If the city people benefit, so be it. That doesn't make it unconstitutional," said Mahler.

Emily Lemcke, chairwoman of the Cherokee County Commission, said impact fees --- $1,842 on a single-family home --- don't begin to cover the costs of a new jail under construction, for example, or a planned new library.

"We collect about $3 million a year in impact fees and about $20 million a year in SPLOST sales tax," she said. To get the job done, it takes revenue from impact fees and the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. Property tax revenues largely fund county government operations. Borrowing from future SPLOST revenues has allowed the jail facility to expand even before it's finished.

For now the cash --- more than $4 million collected since the program began in 2000 --- is frozen pending the outcome of litigation.

Lawyers for the home builders aren't buying the county's argument as the rhetoric heats up.

"What they're glossing over is the fact that the county [plans to pay] for every square foot of capital improvement from impact fees. That's a huge problem," said James Balli, a Columbus lawyer also representing the home builders association. He claims Cherokee's impact fee program is unfair and violates the equal protection provision of the U.S. Constitution.

Cartersville attorney Frank Jenkins, who argued the appeal for Cherokee County, said the fees were fairly set based on population projections of growth for the county both inside and outside the cities. If only unincorporated residents had been counted, the development fees would have been higher, he said. "It was based on a rational approach."

The court already has ruled the fees could not pay for parks, recreation, the library system and roads and transportation since these facilities directly benefit city residents. Fees were upheld for the sheriff's patrol, fire services and the new jail, since city residents are not directly served by them.

Both the county and home builders appealed. "I imagine it will eventually end up in the Georgia Supreme Court. It's too important of a case," said Mahler. Dan Reuter, the Atlanta Regional Commission's land-use planning chief, also has keen interest in the outcome. "There are a number of jurisdictions that are using impact fees as a tool to finance infrastructure that are looking at the Cherokee County case," he said. "There may be some particular things about the way Cherokee did its program that's being challenged, but not impact fees as such," he said.

Home builders are not opposed to impact fees if they are fair and equitable, said Balli, the home builders attorney.

Fayette County commissioners implemented countywide impact fees in May to pay for fire services. But unlike Cherokee, it entered into agreements with three of its cities --- Tyrone, Brooks and Woolsey --- also to levy the fees and share the service.

That is the kind of cooperation among officials of cities and counties that needs to occur for managing growth, suggested Judge Yvette Miller, one of the three members of the appeals court to hear Cherokee's case.

© Copyright 2002 Atlanta Journal & Constitution

ATLANTA -- Georgians may have to get used to watering their lawns and washing their cars on an odd/even schedule permanently, not just during droughts.

''Even in normal conditions, watering ought to occur in a prescribed manner,'' Bob Kerr, director of the state's Pollution Prevention Assistance Division, said Monday in a presentation to two committees working to lay the groundwork for a statewide water-management plan.

Kerr is heading an effort with a narrower focus -- to develop a comprehensive strategy for dealing with droughts. His presentation to members of a legislative study committee and an advisory panel was an early draft of that plan.

The state Environmental Protection Division ordered a partial ban on outdoor watering in June 2000, as Georgia entered the third year of a drought that now is threatening to enter its fifth year.

State Climatologist David Stooksbury presented statistics Monday showing that most of the state has been under extreme drought conditions during at least part of the past four years, going back to May 1998. He said the hardest-hit region over the course of the drought has been Northeast Georgia, where 1998-2001 was nearly the driest four-year period on record.

Under the ban, property owners in 15 metro-Atlanta counties still are prohibited from using water outdoors between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., and then only on an odd/even basis.

Elsewhere in the state, including Athens-Clarke County and most Northeast Georgia communities, outdoor water use is permitted 24 hours a day on an odd-even basis. People with even-number addresses can water on even-number days and people with odd-number addresses can water on odd-number days.

With Georgia's rapid population growth putting an increasing strain on water supplies, the preliminary drought plan outlined by Kerr envisions making the odd-even schedule a permanent fixture, even during periods when rainfall is plentiful.

The plan calls for four stages of ever-tighter restrictions, from the posting of a drought advisory, through a watch, a warning and, finally, a drought emergency. For example, outdoor watering could take place between midnight and 10 a.m. on allowed days under a drought watch, but would be prohibited entirely under a drought emergency.

The draft plan also recommends steps long advocated by environmental groups, including establishing water rate structures that encourage conservation and requiring farmers to measure the amount of water they use to irrigate. But Sally Bethea, executive director of Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said the proposal still contains too many exemptions for farming.

''Agriculture is the biggest water user in the state, and it seems to have the least restrictions,'' she said.

Sen. Harold Ragan, D-Cairo, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, defended the agricultural exemptions. He pointed out that farming is the highest priority use for water after human consumption, which is how they're ranked in current Georgia law.

''The second basic of survival is food,'' he said.

Kerr said that before the draft drought-management proposal is shaped into final form, it will be circulated by the committee that prepared it among the rest of the members of the task force formed to develop the plan.

© Copyright 2002 Athens Banner-Herald

Atlanta is the epicenter of the South's population explosion in the past
decade - and the boom has resonated all over the region.

Hot corridors stretch from Nashville to Orlando to Raleigh-Durham, where
parts of those metro areas grew at least 50 percent since 1990, according to
data from the 2000 U.S. Census.

People are heading to the Deep South in search of Mickey Mouse, high-tech
and auto plants.

"Clearly, there are a lot of people who have come from the Northeast to
Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham for the booming economy, high-tech industries and
the cost of a house," said Noah Pickus, associate professor at the Terry
Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University.

The cost of that paycheck? Elbow room.

The metropolitan area surrounding Raleigh-Durham grew by 38.4 percent
during the past decade, the fourth-highest overall growth rate of any metro
area in the region, just behind Atlanta. More than 1.1 million people live
there.

Development and growth helped Nashville earn the worst sprawl ranking
in the country in a survey by USA Today of areas with more than 1 million
people. The areas around Nashville grew by 25 percent. Nearby Saturn and
Nissan automobile plants spurred job growth in a diversified economy.
Population now eclipses 1.2 million

In central Florida, Orlando's tourism industry has fueled a 34.3
percent population increase. "You're talking about people moving there for
jobs, not retirement," said David Lenze, an economic forecaster at the
University of Florida.

On the southwest coast of Florida, Naples added 65 percent more
people - the fastest growth rate of any metro area in the Deep South from
Louisiana to Virginia. Retirees account for much of the gain there, where
the population is 251,377.

Hispanics made dramatic gains in the region and now represent the majority
minority in Florida. For example, that segment of the population more than
doubled in Orlando, Ocala, Sarasota, West Palm Beach, Miami and Naples.

The Hispanic population grew 226 percent in Atlanta, the 10th-fastest rate
in the South.

"We've got the new economy [high-tech] and the old economy [migrant labor]
right here, right now, and these are drawing very different immigrants,"
Pickus said. "Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham are becoming multiple melting pots.
They have more in common with each other than Atlanta has with rural Georgia
or than Raleigh-Durham has with rural North Carolina."

At 4.1 million people, Atlanta has the largest metropolitan area in the
Southeast. It grew by 38.9 percent - the fastest growth rate for any city in
the region with more than 1 million people.

But even tiny places - Tunica, Miss., Bentonville, Ark., and Wakulla County,
Fla. - grew at double-digit rates.

In Florida, south of the capital in Tallahassee, government workers and
retirees are finding houses for $110,000 that might cost $10,000 more in a
neighboring area. On the Gulf Coast, Wakulla County grew to 22,000 people -
an increase of 57 percent from 1990.

Ted Gaupin, a real estate broker in Wakulla County, sees the growth in his
business. Last year, his listings and sales topped $33 million. The year
before that, it was $20 million. The year before that, it was $14 million.
Just the other day, a man from Indiana came down, bought a second house, and
left.

"We have a low cost of living and low taxes," Gaupin said. A $400,000 beach
house there would cost $2 million in Miami.

"If you're going to live in Florida, you might as well live on the water,"
Gaupin said.

But the economic tide of the 1990s wasn't limited to the shore.

In Nashville, a mix of industries has attracted more than 246,000 people
during the past decade. The environment includes state government,
universities, auto plants and hospital corporations.

"People like to live here," said Malcolm Getz, an associate professor of
economics at Vanderbilt University. "It's reached a sufficient size and is
an amenable place to live. It's an incubator in the health-management
industry."

Benevolent interpretations of ambiguous laws are allowing at least 42
illegal immigrants, and perhaps more, to pay in-state tuition at Georgia
colleges.

Out-of-state students pay about four times as much as Georgians to attend
Georgia colleges. But students who graduate from Georgia high schools may
pay in-state tuition, even if they are in the country illegally.

College admissions officials say that's partly because they have no
effective way to identify illegal immigrants. But officials at three Georgia
colleges -- Dalton State College, Gainesville College and Southern
Polytechnic State University -- give a few acknowledged illegal immigrants
"presidential waivers" on out-of-state tuition fees.

North Georgia College & State University will soon begin doing so, a
spokesman said.

The amounts vary from college to college. At Dalton State, for example,
in-state tuition is $666 per semester for a full-time student, compared with
$2,664 for out-of-state students.

The Georgia Board of Regents issued a memorandum in September 2000 stating
there is no legal barrier to illegal immigrants attending college if they
"attend or graduate" from Georgia high schools.

At the time, system officials said students who were in the United States
illegally would probably have to pay out-of-state tuition. But "out-of-state
tuition serves as a barrier," said James Burran, president of Dalton State.
Burran and some other campus presidents soon began granting these students
an exemption known as "presidential waivers." Board policy allows school
presidents to waive out-of-state tuition for up to 2 percent of full-time
enrollment for "superior out-of-state students and/or international
students."

Some groups opposed

The policy wasn't written for illegal immigrants, said Dan Papp, senior vice
chancellor for academics and fiscal affairs, but the board allows it. "The
thinking is, the University System is not in a position of forbidding it,"
said Papp.

The rule is attracting criticism from some quarters. "It is just ridiculous
for this to be happening when there are so few resources available," said
Jane Russell, director of Georgians for Immigration Reduction. "I think the
limited funds should be for people who are here legally."

David Ray, associate director of the Federation for American Immigration
Reform (FAIR), argues the practice "treats [U.S.] citizens from other states
as second-class citizens to people who are deportable."

Jose Gonzalez, attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education
Fund, sees it differently. "Obviously, for many immigrant students, tuition
cost is a prohibitive factor," he said. "They can't qualify for federal or
state aid. They are products of the Georgia education system."

He added that while the families may be in the country illegally, they pay
taxes that support the education system. "They pay sales tax and gasoline
tax, and many of them get tax ID numbers so they can file their federal
income taxes," he said. "Taxes are withheld from their paychecks."

The Board of Regents' policy and laws concerning illegal immigrants in state
colleges are quirky and ambiguous.

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states must provide a free
education through high school to children illegally in the country. At the
same time, the court held that "like all persons who have entered the United
States unlawfully, these children are subject to deportation."

In other words, the federal government may swoop in and remove them, but
unless it does, the local community must treat them as any other U.S.
citizen.

Federal, state laws conflict

Congress added a new wrinkle in 1996 by making it illegal for states to
grant postsecondary education benefits, including in-state tuition, to
noncitizens unless the same benefits were given to all U.S. citizens.

This year, the Maryland Legislature voted to grant in-state tuition to
illegal immigrants. The General Assembly in Virginia went the other way,
voting to bar people in the country illegally from qualifying for in-state
tuition.

Four states -- Texas, California, New York and Utah -- allow illegal
immigrants to pay in-state college tuition if they have attended high school
in the state for at least three years. At least five other states are
considering similar legislation.

Legal experts differ on whether these state laws violate the 1996 federal
act. Many educators, including the American Association of State Colleges
and Universities, support repeal of the 1996 law.

Gainesville College President Martha T. Nesbitt said she has allowed nine
students who are illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition.

"These are students who came to this country as children and went to school
here," Nesbitt said. "I just feel that in the long run it's better for
society if they get a degree. Hopefully, they can become documented and
contribute to society."

At least three other illegal immigrants are paying full tuition, said Tim
Buchanan, director of admissions at Gainesville College. These students may
be given presidential waivers or scholarships, said Buchanan.

Dalton State College has about 30 such students paying in-state tuition, and
Southern Polytechnic has at least three, school officials say.

Focus on residency

At most Georgia schools, illegal immigrants can get in-state tuition because
admissions officials focus on residency, not immigration status, when
deciding what students should pay.

If these students don't voluntarily reveal their immigration status, college
admissions officials say they are barred by the 1982 Supreme Court decision
from asking.

"If they put down that they're a U.S. citizen and are a high school graduate
in Georgia, that's pretty much it," said Richard Beaubien, director of the
international office of entry services at Georgia Perimeter College.

Besides, school administrators say they can't spend their time being
immigration police.

"We don't have a law enforcement role," said Arlethia Perry-Johnson,
associate vice chancellor to the state Board of Regents. "The fact that they
are illegal should not be something for the university systems to manage. If
they're residents of the state and are trying to better their lives through
education, I think we have a responsibility to provide that opportunity."

Immigration officials estimate there are 228,000 illegal immigrants in
Georgia. Thousands of them are children of parents employed by local and
national firms in fields and factories, according to the estimates.

"I think there's some thought that, for some of these students, their
families have contributed to the state of Georgia in terms of helping build
the state," North Georgia College & State University admissions director
Robert LaVerriere said. "And through no fault of the students, they are
here, and they have been good students. Now they are graduating, and maybe
something should be done for them to recognize their achievements."

2003 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sometime this year, metro Atlanta will join New York, Baltimore, Houston and
a handful of other American cities whose dirty air is labeled a "severe"
problem by federal regulators.

Only car-choked Los Angeles has a poorer rating. Its air pollution is
"extreme" -- the worst on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's scale.

Metro Atlanta's jump from "serious" to "severe" could mean Georgia Power
starts paying millions of dollars in annual fines within a couple of years.
Smaller polluters, such as hospitals using industrial-sized heating and
cooling units, will have a lot more paperwork.

Gas stations in a 13-county metro area might be required to sell a special
fuel that state and federal officials claim could make the air worse. The
fuel was designed for California's smog problem, which is different from
Atlanta's.

Nothing, though, worries business leaders as much as what the new
classification could do to Atlanta's image.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce grouped it with traffic and
poor-performing schools as "another 'hit' on Atlanta's brand." Ron Methier,
chief of the state's air protection branch, said, "It's a stigma."

John Ahmann, the chamber's senior vice president, called it "a hiccup that
our competitors will try to exploit." Bad air has caused other cities, such
as Houston, to lose out when recruiting companies.

What galls Methier, who has clamped down on polluters, and Ahmann, whose
chamber members have borne the brunt of air quality restrictions, is that
metro Atlanta's air hasn't gotten any worse since 1990, even though more
than 1 million people -- and their cars -- have moved in. If the rating were
based only on pollution levels recorded in the past three years, Atlanta's
air would qualify as "moderate," a step better than "serious." Cooler
summers have helped greatly.

They say it's a remarkable accomplishment that should be rewarded, or at
least not punished. Others, including environmental attorney David Farren,
who is behind a lawsuit forcing Atlanta's bump-up to "severe," say the
region and Georgia haven't done nearly enough to clean dirty air.

Noxious stew

It wasn't until the 1990s that scientists figured out ingredients of the
smog that sits over metro Atlanta's summer skyline. Basically, a stew of
emissions from vehicles, power plants, industries and trees combines with
sunlight to create the ground-level ozone, or smog.

Even before they had the smog recipe down, though, state and federal
regulators began requiring cleaner cars. State-mandated emissions tests last
year required more than 200,000 cars and light trucks to make repairs or get
off the road.

This month, Georgia Power turned on $800 million in pollution-control
equipment at seven plants ringing metro Atlanta, including the country's
largest coal-fired plant. Company and state officials expect the plants'
nitrogen oxide emissions to go down 85 percent this summer.

And a fuel specifically designed to reduce pollutants in Georgia's air will
be sold by gas stations in 45 counties later this year.

Federally mandated fuel required for metro areas with "severe" air pollution
probably would not reduce smog as much as the state-required gasoline, said
Kay Prince, chief of EPA's air protection branch for the Southeast.

She said a "severe" rating won't do much to clean up metro Atlanta's air.

"Because of the things Georgia has done in their state plan, there's not as
much additional emission reduction," Prince said.

But countering Georgia's air-cleaning measures is metro Atlanta's explosive
growth.

Population has reached 3.9 million in the 13-county area targeted for dirty
air. Edge counties such as Forsyth and Henry are among the fastest-growing
in the nation. People are driving farther, longer and alone. Less than 4
percent of commuters take public transit, and many of them ride buses and
trains only because they don't own cars.

Smokestack pollution used to cause about half of metro Atlanta's air
pollution; today it's less than a quarter of the problem. Cars, diesel
trucks, construction equipment and lawn mowers cause most of the air
pollution now.

In some ways, metro Atlanta is fortunate. It could have been slapped with
the "severe" rating much sooner, along with about a dozen other metro areas.

Under changes made in 1990 to the federal Clean Air Act, the region could
have been bumped up from "serious" to "severe" when it failed to meet the
1999 deadline for cleaning up its air. But the EPA chose not to enforce the
law; the agency said metro areas could not be held responsible for air
pollution drifting over from other states.

Metro Atlanta and other "serious" areas got another six years to clean up
their air.

It was a call to action for environmentalists, who immediately took the EPA
to court. They really made headway last year when federal appellate courts
in St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Beaumont, Texas, ruled the EPA did not
have authority to extend deadlines set by federal law.

By the time the EPA went before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Atlanta in March, the agency had backed down. Its lead attorney in the
Atlanta case acknowledged the Clean Air Act doesn't allow extensions.

Given the EPA's capitulation, and the earlier rulings, a three-judge panel
from the 11th Circuit is expected to hand metro Atlanta a "severe" rating
any day. Tighter federal regulations would be imposed right away, but the
region would get more time to clean up its air before fines kick in. A 2005
deadline is likely.

To complicate matters even more, the EPA might not enforce the 2005
deadline. It could wait for stricter measures of ground-level ozone and
airborne particles, such as soot. The stricter measures, expected to go into
effect next year, would more accurately gauge dirty air that can lead to
health problems.

Under the new measures, metro Atlanta would have until at least 2009 to meet
the Clean Air standards.

'About public health'

Farren, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has
sued the EPA on behalf of the Sierra Club and other groups, disagrees with
state and federal environmental regulators who downplay the effect of a
"severe" rating. He said the victors are residents of metro Atlanta who
should get cleaner air faster.

"What we're getting is a lot of whining and complaining over the public
image of Atlanta, that this is a black eye," he said. "And in the process,
unfortunately, we're losing sight of the fact that this is about public
health. ... It's about coming up with a plan that will finally, after 30
years, bring clean air to Atlanta."

Because of its bad air, the region must spend more money on traffic-reducing
projects or risk losing federal road-building money, as happened in the late
1990s.

Last year, there were seven days when metro Atlanta's air was considered
unhealthy for most people, particularly during evening rush hour, when smog
levels peak. Hospitals report more cases of asthma attacks during these
episodes, and even people without lung or heart problems complain of
difficulty breathing.

Since 1996, the region has had anywhere from three days like that (in 2001)
to 22 days (in 1998).

Farren argues that sprawl will outweigh technological advances from cleaner
fuels and cleaner engines. Without major changes in how people get around,
through more mass transit, carpooling and other options, growth is "going to
offset the air quality improvements," he said.

Some businesses hurt

Businesses in the 13-county metro Atlanta region would be the biggest losers
under a "severe" rating.

The state has compiled a list of more than 250 companies that would face
tighter restrictions, among them asphalt plants, printing companies,
hospitals, paint manufacturers and cabinetmakers. For most, fees to the
state would more than double to $2,500 a year, although Georgia officials
say these companies cause less than 1 percent of metro Atlanta's air quality
problems.

The companies also would spend about $10,000 a year on emissions monitoring
and related paperwork, said Russell Bailey, Atlanta project manager for
Trinity Consultants, a Dallas firm that helps businesses understand the
Clean Air Act.

If a manufacturing or printing plant wanted to set up shop in the 13-county
area, it would cost about $250,000 in air-quality-related expenses, he said.
They have to make room for their emissions by paying to reduce other
companies' emissions; that would get slightly more expensive when metro
Atlanta is labeled "severe."

Most polluting companies can't think about moving here anyway. Metro
Atlanta's bad air has kept the region from recruiting heavy industry since
1979, according to state officials. "It certainly does not encourage new
small businesses in the area. ... It has the effect of pushing development
farther out" beyond the 13-county region, Bailey said.

For Georgia Power, which emits more tons of pollution into the air than any
other metro area company, the costs could be a lot more.

The power company, which has two plants in the 13-county region, could pay
fines of millions of dollars a year if metro Atlanta fails to meet the Clean
Air Act deadline. Regionwide, state officials estimate the annual fines
collected could run as high as $52 million -- all poured into the state's
general fund.

Steve Ewald, who works on Georgia Power's regulatory issues, said: "It's not
going to help air quality. It's not the emissions from these industries and
Georgia Power that's the problem."

The problem, business leaders, state officials and environmentalists agree,
is cars.

Some companies will drop plans to expand or relocate here, rather than pay
the fines, Ewald said. "That affects the whole region, the general public
and the whole economy."

Houston has been living with a "severe" rating since 1990. Jim Kollaer,
president and chief executive of the Greater Houston Partnership, which
represents 2,000 businesses, said a Toyota plant that ended up in San
Antonio took Houston off its list because of the air problems.

City leaders put out the message that "clean air is everybody's business."
Now, Kollaer said, the "strike" against Houston is being turned into an
asset, with business leading the way.

"When we comply with these requirements, we'll have the cleanest air of any
urban area in the Southwest," he said. "It's a fact."

2003 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

If metro Atlanta were a state, it would dwarf more than half the nation's 50
others.

With 28 Georgia counties now sending more than a quarter of their workers to
the metro area's five core counties, Atlanta's footprint has become the
sixth-largest in the country.

The eight counties that have moved into Atlanta's economic orbit, most of
them south or west of the city, bring the total land area of what is defined
as the metro region to 8,376 square miles. Metro Atlanta now covers 14.5
percent of Georgia, up from 10.5 percent 10 years ago.

Atlanta now ranks among the nation's top 10 metro areas in both population
and land area. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago top the list. Detroit comes
in at No. 10, just behind Atlanta.

Tom Weyandt, planning director for the Atlanta Regional Commission, said
recently released figures from the U.S. Census Bureau are no surprise to
regional planners.

"This is just another reflection of the nature of our growth, of the
direction of our growth and of the magnitude of our growth," Weyandt said.

Portions of at least 19 counties, among them historically rural Paulding and
Dawson, now qualify as "urbanized" areas, he noted. The regional commission
is working on a long-range transportation plan to help get metro Atlanta's
estimated 4.5 million residents to their daily destinations more
efficiently.

Bryan Hager, sprawl director for the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club,
said this new evidence that Atlanta is sprawling across Georgia is "bad news
for our taxpayers."

County governments spend more to deliver basic services to low-density
development, which still characterizes metro Atlanta's suburban and exurban
landscape, Hager said.

What the new census figures demand, according to Hager, is the need for a
new approach to growth and economic development.

"You just can't get around the need for state growth management," he said.

Among metro areas with more than 2 million residents, Phoenix is the only
urbanized region of the country growing faster than metro Atlanta. Like
Atlanta, Phoenix is struggling with growth-related issues such as
transportation and open space preservation.

Two years ago, Phoenix voters approved a more-than-20-mile light rail system
that is to begin running in 2006, according to Scott Phelps, spokesman for
Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza.

"We're really spread out. We have a lot of single-occupancy vehicles in
Phoenix now," Phelps said. "We're trying to give people more options."

The Arizona city also is purchasing 15,000 acres of desert at its fringes to
protect from development, Phelps said.

Commuter rail debated

Transportation advocates in Atlanta have differing opinions about
accommodating the region's commuters.

Doug Alexander, rail manager for the Georgia Passenger Rail Authority, said
the geographic spread of metro Atlanta makes the need for commuter rail more
urgent.

"I think the case for commuter rail is only strengthened by this," Alexander
said. "Commuter rail can go out farther, and it can carry more people per
unit. We can be more of a pipeline for large numbers of people."

But Weyandt suggests Atlanta's sprawl is too scattered to support an
extensive commuter rail system, except in a couple of corridors. The
region's current long-range transportation plan includes construction of a
rail station in downtown Atlanta that would link commuter rail lines to
Macon and Atlanta with MARTA rail and bus service.

The plan's top priorities, though, are road improvements and other types of
transit, according to Weyandt.

The regional planner said the vast amount of county-to-county travel demands
a regional grid of arterial roads complemented by a more flexible mass
transit system heavy on buses.

"I think you've got to put these things in place first," Weyandt said.

Copyright 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The chatter buzzing in the halls of a half-dozen county government buildings
is about growth management: If lot sizes become larger, fewer people can
come.

More exurban counties are considering --- and imposing --- requirements that
would increase the lot size of a house, in some cases to 1 acre or more, as
a way to slow growth.

But planners say these minimum lot requirements can have the opposite
effect. They create more sprawl by spreading out the development.

"It's based on the misunderstanding of thinking that that's going to slow
the number of houses," says John McIlwain, senior fellow for housing at the
Urban Land Institute, a Washington group that promotes responsible
development. "It starts to push the development farther to the next county
up."

Local and national housing experts, environmentalists and even developers
say large minimum lot requirements also decrease the amount of open space
available for parkland by consuming more land for housing. They make
municipal services more expensive to residents because fewer people would be
there to pay taxes. And they make housing less affordable, experts say.

"People will have to pay a little bit more for the land. Houses will be more
expensive," McIlwain says.

Leon Eplan, former planner for the city of Atlanta and a consultant, says
increasing lot sizes runs counter to the ideas of "smart growth," which
calls for more compact development in walkable communities.

"If you want to slow growth, don't give them public services, sewer and
roads," he says. "You tie the growth to the existing system."

A lack of sewer systems is a long-standing density control. Some counties
use it strategically to limit growth because septic tanks cannot sustain
dense development. Other counties --- primarily poor and rural ones --- want
growth but can't afford to build the sewer infrastructure that would support
it.

Still, with sprawl coming like a tsunami about to crash on Hall County, Gary
Gibbs and his fellow commissioners voted in May to increase minimum lot
sizes as a way to curtail growth overflowing from neighboring Gwinnett
County.

"We've already had some very significant waves [of growth]," says Gibbs, the
chairman, who was elected on a slow-growth platform in a county that grew by
46 percent during the 1990s and now stands at about 146,000 people. "I think
the additional waves are ready to pound."

Channeling growth

By making lot sizes larger --- to 0.8 of an acre in unincorporated parts of
the county --- they are trying to force developers to build fewer houses on
a piece of land. Gibbs says the idea is to push development into the cities,
which have more sewer and water lines and a structure to handle municipal
services.

"The cities are better capable of dealing with the higher density because
they already have infrastructure in place," he says. "If you spread
[development] out too far, you can't provide those services."

Not everyone in Hall agrees.

This month, 25 individuals and organizations filed lawsuits in federal and
state courts to challenge the new ordinance. The groups include farmers and
longtime landowners, developers, the local and state home-builders
associations, and a law firm that specializes in residential closings.

They accuse the county of excluding affordable housing. That's a case Henry
County lost in an exclusionary-zoning lawsuit in 1997. A similar lawsuit is
pending in Fayette County.

Bruce Katz, who directs the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, says the impact may be greater than
affordable housing in Hall. The region could suffer if more counties adopt
the policies.

"The economics is metropolitan. The housing markets are metropolitan," he
says, adding that the commuter base also has become metropolitan. "Land-use
decisions are local and parochial."

He says imposing minimum lot requirements sends the message that counties
don't care about the growth around them. "[It says] we just care what
happens within our own borders. What happens outside our borders is not our
concern," he says.

In Henry County, now the third-fastest-growing county in the nation,
Commission Chairman Leland Maddox says he'd like to impose 1-acre lots in
more rural areas.

Douglas County is considering 3-acre lots in some areas to protect stream
buffers. The lot restriction wouldn't be used as a growth-management tool,
but Planning Director Eric Linton acknowledges it could have that underlying
influence.

Newton County, southeast of Atlanta, last month increased the minimum lot
size to 2 acres for land that protects the county's drinking water. This now
affects 96,000 acres in the eastern half of Newton, which is mostly
undeveloped.

Still, economic forces eventually will correct the market, says Alan Wexler,
president of Databank, a research company that tracks land prices in metro
Atlanta.

"They would be extending sewer lines and water lines to very few people, and
there would be less people to pay for services," he says. "At some point
market forces, economic forces, will absolutely bring political changes."

Different experiences

While experts say increasing lot sizes doesn't work as a growth-management
tool, two metro Atlanta counties have seen varied results.

Pickens County, in the North Georgia mountains off Ga. 515, and Coweta
County, some 35 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta on the I-85 corridor,
increased lot sizes in response to failing septic systems.

In Pickens, the county seat of Jasper hasn't experienced an influx of growth
within its 5 square miles as a result of increased lot sizes in the county,
said Jim Smith, the city's building official.

Norman Pope, Pickens' director of planning and zoning, said the county's
single-family building permits decreased slightly, to 391 in 2000 from from
510 in 1999. The county issued 424 last year.

"If it's slowed the growth down, we can't tell," he says.

But in Coweta, minimum lot requirements approved in 1997 helped prompt a
development shift into the city of Newnan, which unlike the county provides
a sewer system.

Coweta's planning director, Robert Tolleson, says the county held public
hearings for more than a year to determine a growth-management strategy. It
hired Robert Charles Lesser & Co., a real estate consulting firm.

The company recommended against increasing lot size, but residents said they
wanted it as a way to slow growth.

As a result, the county now requires the minimum lot size to be 1.6 acres in
areas where sewer is not available, which is most of the county. Homes on
Coweta's limited sewer system can be built on 1-acre lots. Before the
change, developers could build homes on half-acre lots with water and sewer,
and on 0.8 of an acre with septic systems.

The shift is evident in the numbers. In 1996, Coweta issued about 1,400
building permits; the city of Newnan, the county seat, issued 26. In 2001,
Coweta issued about 700 and Newnan 566. The growth shifted from the rural
areas to the small town of Newnan, which had room to absorb new construction
within its 18.6 square miles.

"I feel like it had an effect," Tolleson says.

But Newnan's mayor says he isn't convinced of the correlation.

"We have sewer in the city vs. no sewer in the county. That's one of the
reasons that they moved to a larger lot size," Mayor Keith Brady says. He
says other factors caused the number of building permits to increase:
"location, proximity to Atlanta, quality school systems, a beautiful
downtown."

Christopher Leinberger, a "smart growth" developer based in New Mexico,
helped prepare the Robert Charles Lesser study and says he's surprised with
the results.

"The conventional wisdom is the minimum lot size spreads the problem out,"
he says. "[Coweta] may have proven us wrong, and by trial and error found
another way to contain sprawl. But I think that second piece is the key
piece --- that they encouraged or forced development into [cities] that are
higher-density."

But not everyone wants a house on a large lot, some developers caution.

Pathway Communities is developing two subdivisions in Newnan. Senior Vice
President Dan Camp says his company typically doesn't build homes on 1-acre
lots or larger.

"It's not what we do," he says. "A lot of people don't want a large lot.
They just don't want it. They don't want to spend their afternoons cutting
grass."

Homes in the SummerGrove subdivision sit on lots as small as one-eighth of
an acre. Instead of large back yards, residents share large parks within the
development.

"Large lot size is a disaster. It doesn't accomplish what you want in the
end," Camp says. "It raises the [development] costs so high that you start
excluding a huge portion of the market. You can't afford to buy the house.
... That's just plain wrong."

Rapid development on the Sea Islands of Georgia and the Carolinas is
threatening to erase a unique way of life: the Gullah-Geechee culture with
its lilting dialect, traditions and handicrafts, a national preservation
group said Monday.

"Unless something is done to halt the destruction, the Gullah-Geechee
culture will be relegated to museums and history books," said Richard Moe,
president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

On Monday, the trust included the "Gullah-Geechee Coasts" on its 2004 list
of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

The Gullahs, or Geechees as they are known outside South Carolina, are
descendants of African slaves who worked on the coastal cotton and rice
plantations before the Civil War. After Emancipation, they remained in
isolated communities and kept their distinctive dialect, cuisine and
handicrafts, such as sweet grass baskets.

Until the last couple of decades, the backdrop of their culture --- sleepy
sea islands, sweeping salt marshes, placid tidal creeks and oak-shaded dirt
roads --- had experienced relatively little change.

"The communities had remained intact because of their relative isolation,"
said Cynthia Porcher of the Historic Charleston Foundation. "Now, they are
losing their homes and culture to resort and suburban development and rising
taxes."

One such place is the close-knit Hog Hammock village on Georgia's Sapelo
Island, reachable only by boat. Most of the 70 or so African-American
residents are descendants of slaves who worked on the island's plantations
before the Civil War. They have owned their property for generations, but
are now besieged by outsiders to sell.

"They offer you cash money, but we are struggling to keep our way of life,"
said Caesar Banks, a Hog Hammock resident who speaks the patois of his
Geechee ancestors.

On St. Simons Island, enslaved Africans operated rice plantations beginning
in the 18th century. Now, the island's Gullah-Geechee populations live in
three small enclaves. Access to their burial grounds is presently through a
golf course.

"Million-dollar homes and condominiums are constructed literally next door
to modest cottages, and increased property values are forcing the elderly
population to leave the island," said Jeanne Cyriaque of the Historic
Preservation Division of the state Department of Natural Resources.

Porcher, who wrote the nomination for inclusion of the communities on the
National Trust list, said the listing was an unusual step for the
organization. "But we hope that it will call public attention to the
culture," she said.

In a related event scheduled for Wednesday in South Carolina, National Park
Service officials will discuss a newly completed three-year study authorized
by Congress to help preserve the Gullah-Geechee culture.

Patricia Hooks, the Park Service's regional director in Atlanta, said the
study will recommend three Gullah-Geechee "coastal heritage centers" be
built on the coast to tell about the culture. Two centers would be in South
Carolina and the third in Georgia.

Many characteristics of the Gullah-Geechee culture have been traced to
Africa.

For instance, the weaving of baskets from grass, palmetto leaf strips and
pine straw is a distinct Gullah-Geechee craft brought from West Africa,
historians say.

The unique dialect is a melodic blend of 17th- and 18th-century English and
African dialects. Herbal medicine remedies, storytelling and even magical
"hoodoo" traditions are similar to those in parts of West Africa.

Gullah-Geechee people also practice the "coastal ring shout," a musical
tradition that has survived since the time of enslavement.

Copyright 2004 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Even an aggressive program of new public transit, expanded roadways and
extensive bike and pedestrian lanes won't keep metro Atlanta's traffic
gridlock from getting worse as the region adds another 2 million residents
over the next 25 years.

Analysis provided Thursday by the Atlanta Regional Commission shows the
planning agency's long-range blueprint for transportation improvement will
do nothing to make metro commutes faster.

Rush-hour drive times will continue to lengthen, as will gridlock
regionwide. For example, an afternoon trip from Marietta to
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is projected to grow from a
48-minute ride to a 70-minute odyssey.

Afternoon travel from downtown Atlanta to Town Center Mall in Cobb County,
which now takes 53 minutes, will eat up 61 minutes even after $50 billion in
new HOV lanes, public transit, intersection improvements and other
transportation-related construction in the region.

The current commute between Cobb County and downtown Atlanta is enough to
make Evelyn Johnson cringe.

"I find it hard to believe it can get worse than it already is," she said.
"If you try it at the wrong time, the expressway can look like a parking
lot."

Johnson, a pharmaceutical sales representative, has driven from her Kennesaw
home to downtown Atlanta at least three times a week for the past three
years. One day last summer, the trip took nearly two hours when an accident
shut down part of I-75.

Even adjusting her schedule to avoid traffic hasn't helped. "I tried leaving
earlier [in the morning] and still ran into traffic," she said.

Regional leaders who heard the ARC staff's analysis of the plan, which has
been developed over the last 18 months, seemed frustrated that gridlock
would continue for decades despite a substantial investment in new and
expanded transportation systems.

"What I've heard is that if we spend $50 billion, we'll only be a little
worse than if we do nothing. As a politician, I can't take that back to my
constituents," said Roswell Mayor Jere Wood.

But executives of the regional agency defend the plan as a hedge against
even greater congestion and delays stemming from rapid population growth.

"When you realize there's not enough money, what [the plan] does is a lot,"
said Charles "Chick" Krautler, Atlanta Regional Commission director.

Dream plan trimmed

The plan is a whittled-down version of a more ambitious $74.4 billion
blueprint that regional leaders compiled last year knowing they couldn't
afford everything in it. The larger plan was drawn to show which
transportation improvements could help ease congestion if all the money
needed to create them could be found.

But $50 billion in local, state and federal money was all the ARC staff
could reasonably predict would be available between now and 2030. To help
convey the size of that pot, with $50 billion the region could install 649
interchanges like the one at I-75 and I-285.

In trimming the original plan, staffers cut bus rapid transit lines on I-20
west, Ga. 400 and I-75 south as well as capacity-increasing projects on the
Downtown Connector, I-285 and I-75 south.

Still, Krautler said the plan would help ease some of the worst stretches of
road while expanding the amount of available public transit and the number
of Atlantans who use it.

A key is the addition of 10 routes of rapid transit buses that commuters can
board and ride like trains. Routes will include a transit line from downtown
Atlanta to the Town Center area of Cobb County, and one across the top end
of I-285 that will operate in a lane of its own.

Express buses also would be deployed in the more than $5 billion of HOV
lanes to be built.

But the most effective transit line planned for construction in the next 25
years is the one known as the Belt Line/C-Loop. ARC officials are calling it
the Inner Core Transit, a line that would loop through many of Atlanta's
intown neighborhoods and link them to MARTA and each other.

"The Inner Core is an extremely important piece," said ARC Transportation
Planning Director Jane Hayse.

In response to criticism that the regional plan shortchanges pedestrian
projects, officials note an unprecedented $900 million set aside for such
improvements.

The reason the region has lagged in pedestrian amenities, said Planning
Director Tom Weyandt, is that required local funding has been diverted to
other projects, such as new roads.

Sprawl foes urge more

The long-range transportation plan has drawn fire from a wide spectrum of
advocates for doing too little to ease gridlock and create new
transportation options.

Bryan Hager, sprawl director for the Sierra Club's Georgia Chapter, said the
failure to make significant headway against gridlock cried out for a new
approach to transportation.

"It's amazing that the ARC will put out a plan that says things are going to
continue to get worse," Hager said.

But ARC officials counter that the plan meets federal air quality
requirements and helps keep the growth of residents and cars from worsening
gridlock even more. They concede that a number of "challenges" remain, such
as generating more money to build and maintain an adequate urban
transportation system.

"This is helping us keep track of growth, but this is not enough," Hayse
said.

Staff writers Donna Williams Lewis and Leo Willingham contributed to this
article.

Copyright 2004 Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DeKalb County officials are trying to put together a long-range plan for the
county's future, but some say the vision is murky.

At a public hearing last week to gather citizen suggestions for the county's
comprehensive plan, several residents said they wanted a better-defined
outline from county government about how DeKalb should deal with traffic,
the environment, recruiting more businesses and other growth issues.

"We're paying for your expertise," Don Broussard, a planning commission
member, said during the meeting at Lakeside High School. "We'd like to see
what your ideas are about the big picture issues."

Others echoed the criticism. "The county does not have a vision for where it
wants to go," said Davis Fox, an Emory area resident who serves on the
Atlanta Regional Commission board.

A second public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Stephenson High School,
701 Stephenson Road, Stone Mountain.

County planning administrators said the purpose of the meetings is not to
tell residents what the plan needs, but to get their ideas and incorporate
them into the plan.

"We're trying to get community feedback and then go about providing what
they want in their community," explained Shari Strickland, interim county
planning director.

DeKalb has evolved from an Atlanta suburb into a developed urban county, and
county leaders are trying to determine how to prepare for growth.

In north DeKalb, ranch-style homes are being renovated into larger abodes or
into townhouse developments because there is little undeveloped land.
Meanwhile, in south DeKalb, affordable single-family developments are
popping up throughout the area, luring thousands of residents.

The population growth has created widespread traffic gridlock and a demand
for more high-paying businesses.

County Commissioner Kathie Gannon, who attended last week's community
meeting, said she hopes to discuss a long-range vision with her fellow
commissioners that could serve as a blueprint for citizens interested in
contributing to the county's comprehensive plan.

In the first round of community meetings, which took place in June,
residents' suggestions included wider entrance and exit ramps along
interstate highways, increased funding for alternative modes of
transportation, tax incentives for new businesses, more developments where
people can live and work in the same area and a mandatory recycling program.

Several residents at last week's meeting complained county officials needed
to do more to get citizens involved in the planning process. The plan is not
on the county's Web site, and some residents complained they could not take
documents about the plan with them to study before providing feedback.

Strickland said the county is trying to engage citizens in the plan, but she
suggested many residents aren't interested in long-term planning, noting low
attendance at previous public hearings. About 30 people came to last week's
meeting, despite a heavy rain.

County officials hope to finish the final draft of the plan by April and
have a round of public hearings before it is approved by county
commissioners and sent to the Atlanta Regional Commission and to the state
Department of Community Affairs.

EXAMINE THE COUNTY PLAN
You can review the current draft of the county's comprehensive plan at all
DeKalb County libraries. County planning officials said they are preparing
to put the plan on the department's Web site,
www.co.dekalb.ga.us/planning/main/planning.html.

Copyright 2005 Atlanta Journal Constitution

Washington — Georgia experienced one of the largest influxes of immigrants
in the nation from 2000 to 2005, a study released Monday says.

During that time, 248,000 immigrants arrived in the state, bringing their
total number to 762,000, or about 9 percent of the population, said the
report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank
that supports lower levels of immigration.

Groups defending immigrants criticized the study, which comes as the
national debate on the issue heats up in anticipation of a vote on a major
immigration bill later this week in the House of Representatives. And in
Georgia, the Legislature is set to convene next month with an agenda that
includes a measure aimed at restricting illegal immigrants' use of state
services.

Immigrants in Georgia — both legal and illegal — have higher rates of being
uninsured and using Medicaid than native residents, putting a strain on
local hospitals, said Steven Camarota, author of the report and director of
research at the center.

"The impact on the health care system is quite large in Georgia," he said.

Nationwide, the report shows more immigrants came to the United States since
2000 than in any five-year period in history, and that half of those 7.9
million people entered the country illegally.

In Georgia, about 280,000 immigrants are estimated to be illegal, according
to the study.

The report, which analyzed data compiled by the U.S. Census, also found that
the nation's 35 million immigrants are less educated and more dependent on
welfare services than native-born Americans.

Camarota said the higher use of social services by immigrants was not caused
by an unwillingness to work or because immigrants come to the United States
for welfare, but because they have very low levels of education.

The government welfare services "are designed to help low-income workers
with children, and that describes a very large share of immigrants," he
said.

Nationwide, immigrants comprise about 12 percent of the population, up from
about 5 percent in the mid 1970s. If current trends continue, within about a
decade, the foreign-born share of the population will surpass the high of
14.7 percent reached in 1910, the report states.

The House is poised to pass a major immigration bill this week that would
increase penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, stiffen
sentences for human smugglers and make it a felony to be in the United
States illegally.

Hispanic groups criticized the Center for Immigration Studies report.

"This information isn't particularly credible," said Cecilia Munoz, vice
president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil
rights group.

Munoz said the center was an "immigration restrictionist group" and that it
was no surprise that it would release a study that puts immigrants in a bad
light.

Immigrant advocates also said that the study did not offer real solutions to
the nation's immigration problems.

"It's obvious we are experiencing a wave of immigration, but our laws
regulating this flow are seriously broken and out-of-date to the point that
half of the current flow is outside the legal system" said Angela Kelley,
deputy director of the National Immigration Forum in Washington. "We need to
take our heads out of the sand and update our laws so that the flow of
immigrants to America happens in a safe, legal, and controlled manner that
works for us."

The study says 31 percent of adult immigrants in the United States have not
completed high school and that 29 percent of immigrant-headed households use
at least one major welfare program. By comparison, about 18 percent of
native households use at least one major welfare program such as food
assistance or Medicaid.

In addition, it places the poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born
children at 18 percent, compared to 12 percent for natives and their
children. As a result, immigrants and their children account for almost one
in four people living in poverty. The federal government defines poverty as
an individual income level of less than $9,570 a year and $19,500 for a
family of four.

In Georgia, 21 percent of immigrants age 18 and older do not have a high
school diploma, compared to about 11 percent of the native population. In
addition, about 16 percent of the state's immigrants and their children live
in poverty, compared to 13 percent of native-born residents and their
children.

It says 27 percent of immigrant-headed households in Georgia use at least
one major welfare program, compared to 19 percent of those headed by native
residents and 40 percent of immigrants and their children are uninsured,
compared to 14 percent of natives.

Copyright 2005 Atlanta Journal Constitution

Subject	Article Headline	Date
Population	Gwinnett, Georgia Expected to Hit 1 Million by 2020	2/6/02
Growth	Georgia Town May Impose Impact Fees	1/28/02
Environment	Georgia Plans Permanent Water Restrictions	1/8/02
Population	Growing pains - 1990s Explosion Gives Atlanta More Clout and Headaches	5/20/03
Sprawl	Jobs Fueling South's Hot Growth, but Residents are Paying for it in Sprawl	5/22/03
Immigration	Illegal Immigrants Get Tuition Break	5/29/03
Environment	'Severe' Rating for Air Quality Could Be Costly	6/02/03
Population	Atlanta swells into top-10 U.S. metro areas	6/16/03
Growth	Many see lot sizes as poor curb on growth	6/30/03
Sprawl	Coweta considers preservation plan	8/05/03
Population	Gullah-Geechee heritage in peril, group says	05/25/04
Population	Gridlock will only get worse despite 25-year, $50 billion plan to help	08/13/04
Population	Spinning Our Wheels	08/13/04
Growth	Some residents say county's comprehensive plan lacks vision	01/20/05
Immigration	State's immigrant population surges	12/13/05
Population	South records largest increase in population	12/22/05