Some of today’s leaders in Peachtree City are not based in reality and seem to have no clue as to what is going on. As a 20-year resident who lives and works in this town, I see the changes for the worst every day and they are obvious and everywhere.

In his explanatory letter to address an email complaint, the mayor claims that there have not been “any significant changes in traffic before and after Wal-Mart opened,” and also that there has been “no increase in traffic on Peachtree Parkway after the Target Center opened.” He also states that there is nothing “so far to suggest deviation from the (land use) plan.”

What is he talking about? If you talk to almost any resident in this city, you will hear a different opinion. This town has burst wide open just in the last few years. Changes are suddenly significant.

The incomprehensible retail development at the junction of Ga. highways 54 and 74 is a prime example of poor planning and has certainly caused traffic increases in that area, as well as congestion, accidents and bottlenecks.

Before the Target center came to town, I used to stop at the Kedron Kroger at 6 p.m., park near the door and run in and come out quickly with no problem. Try that now. You have to park at the other end of the lot, all of the lines are backed up inside the store and it’s all pretty frantic.

I drive along Peachtree Parkway every day and the lines just to get anywhere are unbelievable at certain times of day compared to only a few short years ago. Hwy. 74 has changed overnight to a near-expressway thoroughfare with no holds barred.

Why are we continuing to build a shopping hub that is not designed to support the townspeople, but is attracting shoppers from all over a six-county area? Those big boxes and “name stores” not only attract shoppers, but also bring in people to work from outside of the area.

Look around you when you are driving or parked outside one of these stores. The plates that say Clayton, Fulton, Coweta, Spalding and even Troup often outnumber those that say Fayette.

Don’t forget those trucks lumbering through neighborhoods to get the stock delivered. “Build it and they will come.” And they certainly have. The question now is what is it that we are building and why?

The original plans for Peachtree City that I remember supported a residential suburban community based on a “village” concept with four villages, each having a variety of home styles and prices available and each with a small retail center to serve the needs of the surrounding village. Peachtree City in 1986 when I moved to the area was just that. The third village wasn’t completed until 1989 and the fourth was somewhere in the future.

The common amenities in the town spread throughout the villages and in the other areas and included lakes, ponds, recreational facilities, schools, open spaces, wetlands, the library and the amphitheater. Miles of cart paths connected everything.

Peachtree City has gone from being a very well-planned community and one of the best places to live in the country to a poorly planned and disjointed hodgepodge of whatever.

Along with Peachtree City, the surrounding areas have changed for the worst as well. Both Fayetteville and Newnan used to be a pleasant jaunt for shopping or entertainment, but now it is difficult to get to either area and if you do get there, the experience is rarely a pleasant one.

The train used to come through Tyrone a couple of times a day, sounding its lonely whistle. Today, you can’t even drive through that town without being stopped for the trains. And if you miss that, you can easily see the eyesore created by them along Hwy. 74.

Peachtree City then was a place you came to live, not a place that anyone came to shop.

Most of us who “loved to call it home” just wonder what happened. Today, Peachtree City is a pass-through, a crossroads and a shopping mecca. You can’t go anywhere without being frustrated by the traffic, the signal lights and the crowds. Crime has suddenly turned from the vandalism of spray paint to robberies, murders and drug busts that are frequent and pervasive.

The town not only survived, but flourished without those big boxes. We even did all right without The Avenue and we certainly managed without the Target shopping area in Kedron.

With a new shopping area springing up on every half-mile stretch of every major highway, you begin to wonder just how many nail salons, tanning beds and mattress stores one little town needs. Meanwhile some of the original “village” shopping areas continue to dry up and serve their original purpose no more. We built it and they started coming – and they just keep coming.

I don’t need to shop five minutes away, especially when it becomes a 20-minute drive. I don’t want to be served with an attitude or questioned for ID by people from outside my community when I go out. I don’t want to waste tons of gas trying to get three miles down the road because of congestion and traffic lights.

I have “loved to call it home” for over 20 years, but Peachtree City is quickly becoming what I moved to get away from. The quality of life is not nearly what it was for the first 15 years.

Nowadays anything goes. Those of us who trusted that the leaders of this community had our best interests in mind and were doing the right things are sorely disappointed and disillusioned. They asked for input in surveys and then did just the opposite of the responses, claiming that the respondents must not have understood the questions. This in a community of higher educational and socioeconomic levels than most. Annexation and continued residential development is also out of control.

Bigger and more are definitely not always better. As the residents of Peachtree City and the surrounds become more and more disgusted and begin to move away, the area will no longer be the oasis it once was, but will become just another pit stop of urban sprawl.

It may be too late to back up, but is there any hope at all of stopping the madness?

Ralph Ferguson

Peachtree City, Ga.