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What that future will be

By BEN NELMS
bnelms@TheCitizenNews.com

I know a few weeks isn’t very long, but it’s long enough to begin to meet some of the people that call South Fulton home. And as time goes on, I have every reason to believe I’ll get to know even more of you, the things you hold dear and the things that cause you both joy and grief.

A community is a mixture of the hopes and dreams, the trials and tragedies, the every day realities and the time-bound progression of the lives of the participants that reside there: its citizens, businesses and local governments.

Today, more than ever, the communities of South Fulton, along with Fayette and Coweta counties, are currently experiencing the influx of what is destined to become a massively populated area of metro Atlanta. Just how populated this area becomes and how that inevitable growth will be managed over the next two decades is yet to be realized. And though the cities of Union City, Fairburn and Palmetto will continue to be distinct municipalities, a growing percentage of their lot will be cast with their next-door neighbors in Fayette and Coweta and unincorporated South Fulton.

As time passes, populations increase around us and Atlanta spreads, some citizens might naturally feel a little displaced, a little left out or left behind. And this is not good. But the nice thing is, there’s a way to prevent what has happened in so many other metro areas from happening here. I don’t mean with effective zoning requirements and city planning, although the mandatory nature of these components is obvious. It involves more. It involves you.

It is the willingness of the citizens of any community that stands between an awareness of what is going on around them and the mystery of “not knowing.” And it is that not knowing that wears people down and breeds an unfortunate anonymity that causes a person’s world to shrink even further. Left unchecked in an individual or in a community, the result is often a belief that we are powerless to affect positive changes in our community and, even worse, in our own life within that community. Such beliefs predict a future of despondency and despair. It may sound silly to some of you, but some people I have known have moved far past the point of believing “you can’t fight city hall.” Today, some of them can hardly find the place. They have disconnected themselves from the issues facing their communities, yet they are usually the first ones to complain about this or that. Sadly, they wear their apathy like a badge of honor.

But this need not be the fate of the residents of South Fulton. Far from it. Whether we all agree or disagree on a given issue, no impending surge in population, no Atlanta megalopolis, no “too busy to care” mindset can forestall the willing intentions of good people.

Either we manage the future or the future will manage us. The more involved citizens become, the more they know. The more they know, the better prepared they are to affect positive change. So better to take an active role, any active role on any level, in helping to determine just what that future will be.