This isn’t going to be a whole lot more than a Wikipedia dump but I figured it but provide a little context for the race and guide some supporting efforts (like prioritizing Presidential results by Legislative District crunching for the affected local seats) for the special election.
I went to graduate school in Atlanta although most of my time was spent in the urban core rather than the suburbs. I do have a couple of friends and some family up there and spent a fair amount of time visiting Roswell, which as you can see from the map in pretty much dead center of the district.
The thin lines on the map are county lines. The skinny neck that reaches up past Sandy Springs to include Roswell is Fulton County, which covers most of the western side of Atlanta. To the west of that is Cobb County, and the other county within the district is DeKalb (“de cab” in case you are reaching someone on the phone).
A better view of the counties is below, with the I-285 “Perimeter” Interstate and other roads pictured.
Atlanta Area Counties with Roads
For more information, including some good places to eat in Roswell (trendy yuppies aren’t just Inside the Perimeter anymore) and how local districts and the Congressional districts overlap, please see below.
As with many far-flung suburbs, I believe a lot of the more northerly reaches of the district where farmland not too long ago. And then building started reaching further and further north. The US Highway 19 becomes GA-400 at the I-285 perimeter (actually a bit north of that) and it is a MISERABLE place to be during commuter hours. It’s apparently gotten much worse since the toll was removed a couple of years ago. This is a professional corridor with lots of commuters. My wife and I will typically take the MARTA (mass transit train) as far as we good whenever we visit the in-laws.
Roswell has a couple of kitschy bits of commerce in the center of town. The first are the historical homes like Founders’ Hall which are big hits during wedding season. There is also a shopping district called Canton Street. When I first started visiting up there, it had a pretty strong antique shop and church brunch restaurant vibe. Recently, it seems to cater much more toward the tech-building set of young professionals like myself that want craft beer and inexplicably to spend $20 on a pizza. Not to go all J.D. Vance on y’all, but I do occasionally wonder how I get into places like that, but anyway …
I think the story I’m trying to tell is part of an anecdotal set that younger people seem to be moving up here as part of the general uplift of the Atlanta area that has come with a growing film industry and the ever-improving status of the Georgia Institute of Technology relative to its more nationally famous peers like Stanford or MIT. These people are educated, making money, and probably also from many other parts of the country as well as the South. They are reachable in the current Democratic Party I think.
So that’s the middle of the district. I can also speak a little to the landscape to the western side, Cobb County. Cobb is sprawl. Six lane “surface streets” to supplement the never-seems-to-quite-go-where-you-are Interstates in the area are quite common. You may also have heard the news that the Atlanta Braves will no longer play downtown but to a lush new entertainplex up in the suburbs. I pity anyone attempting to travel in that area during future game days.
This is probably also a place to point out that there is long-standing cynicism (likely with evidence if I bothered to go looking) that the mass transit train MARTA was stopped right at the perimeter because people living there didn’t want “vagrants” (read: Blacks) to have easy travel near their homes. Similar dynamics may have driven the specifics of the Braves relocation. We’ll find out when we can compare attendance numbers.
The various locations within the GA-06 district include many of the higher incomes in the state. When I describe the district to Californians I’ve said “Think Orange County in the South.” Someone like Jon Ossoff might be a pretty good candidate here if he comes off as talented, hungry, and on the rise rather than merely an inexperienced kid. I did recently hear that he doesn’t currently live in the district, which will be a knock against him. “Supporting my wife at Emory” will probably be a supportable excuse here among others that have either recently settled up here from the city or have children in college themselves.
I think I’ll stop opining here. Please keep in mind to take my words with many grains of salt. I’ve visited this area and spent time with friends and family here, but I can by no means claim the vision of a native or someone that’s been deeply involved in this community for years.
A couple of quick maps to reward your patience. These are taken from the Georgia Reapportionment office, which is the body that makes the maps. It sounds nice and nonpartisan but is responsible for one of the worst local gerrymanders in the country. They also have been dicking around with the borders lately so I’m not 100% certain their site has the right file (the filename has “12RE” in it even though latest are ‘15). When I eyeball compare the Google Earth rendering below and the PDF maps they have (which do have the proper 15 in the name) it seems to match.
In case you care to look up the names of officials relevant to the write-up below, check the House Member Listing.
As can be seen below, all of districts 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, and 79 are within GA-06. Sizable portions of 43, 44, 46, 80, and 81 are also included. Almost every stinkin’ one is Republican except for 81. It would be nice to see Presidential numbers versus local candidate numbers, especially when running against not a nice suburban Republican but a crazy like the Donald.
The Georgia Senate of course is much less crowded. Districts 32, 40, and 56 are relevant here. You can see the relevant office-holders at the Senators Listing.
So I don’t know how much light that all shed on the problem of getting a Democrat elected in GA-06. But I haven’t seen a lot of diaries on the topic so I thought I’d try and add a little color to the story.