South Cobb Has Strong Spirit to Overcome Challenges

It’s been repeated time and time again amongst those who live in South Cobb–Austell and Mableton– and even nearby Powder Springs.

“We’re like the stepchild of Cobb County,” someone will say at a town hall meeting or just when discussing the lack of connecting sidewalks in South Cobb, for example.

The Marietta Daily Journal ran a centerpiece about the “State of South Cobb” on its front page Sunday. The piece was a general overview of all the aspects of South Cobb covered by South Cobb Patch day in and day out for the last 20 months.

The piece with its vague generalizations ran alongside photos of vacant buildings, overgrown lawns and the furniture store that went out of business last year.

Here’s what South Cobbers had to say about the vacancies along and the

South Cobb certainly has its challenges. People have their own thoughts about when South Cobb really began taking a turn for the worst. Some say it happened in the mid-1990s and others say it happened before then.

South Cobb may be the hardest hit by the housing crisis. With a high rate of foreclosures, many South Cobbers saw their property values slashed by as much as 50 percent this year. However, there are areas of South Cobb with homes selling for half a million dollars or more. These homes are found in neighborhoods with manicured lawns and well-kept homes.

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that South Cobb lags behind the county school district in education, often testing below grade level, which contributes to low property values in South Cobb.

South Cobb is more than the sum of its challenges. South Cobb is a community with spirit and heart, and that was not included in the overview of this piece.

A group of concerned citizens, led by community leader Shelia Edwards, successfully worked to shut down the illegal operations of a nearby waste transfer station, for example.

In May, the .

Although businesses are shuttering throughout South Cobb, several of them are opening their doors. South Cobb Patch has been there to interview owners of various businesses in Mableton and Austell, like . In fact, an American Deli will soon open its doors in the former location of Sweet T’s Catfish and Blues on East-West Connector.

The county, along with the South Cobb Redevelopment Authority, is working hard to make sure that Historic Mableton, the Riverline area and the Six Flags area are prepared for an economic upturn, which could bring about economic redevelopment.

Here's how the South Cobb area is working to overcome its challenges:

• The will serve as a tool for economic redevelopment in the area. The strategy is already completed and not a work in progress as the article stated.

• As part of the .

• Riverview Landing, the $300 million mixed-use town center being built on River View Road, has already held several community events since county . South Cobb Patch covered each of the meetings as the developers fought for the planned village community zoning despite objections from nearby industrial businesses.

• No town center is being considered for the Six Flags area as the piece stated, but as South Cobb Patch has covered,

• Additionally, commissioners passed a

• The MDJ piece also states that the county commissioners recently made a request to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to create an opportunity zone, which would offer companies moving there a $3,500 tax credit for each employee. However, The GDA approved the application and designated the Six Flags area an Opportunity Zone in September 2011. The United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta also designated the area an opportunity zone and awarded it a $35,000 grant in June 2011.

It’s unclear how successful these opportunity zone designations are since GDA also designated South Cobb’s Veterans Memorial Highway an opportunity zone in November 2010. Since then, the area has seen little growth.

• However, crime continues to decrease in South Cobb’s Precinct 2, once the area with the highest number of calls for service and highest rates of crime. The MDJ article did include that Smyrna-East Cobb’s Precinct 3 is often surpassing South Cobb in monthly crime incidents.

So, South Cobb Patch wanted to ask you “What is the State of South Cobb?” Are we South Cobbers the stepchildren of Cobb County?