The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is the regional planning and intergovernmental coordination agency for the metro Atlanta, Georgia, USA region, defined as the 10-county area of Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties. The city of Atlanta is contained within this region. Forsyth County is also sometimes included but is not considered by the Georgia Department of Economic Development to be part of the area. It also serves as the metropolitan planning organization for those and nine more counties in the region: Barrow, Bartow, Carroll, Coweta, Hall, Newton, Paulding, Spalding, and Walton counties. [1] [2]
ARC and its predecessor agencies have coordinated the planning efforts in the region since 1947, when the first publicly supported, multi-county planning agency in the United States was created. At that time, the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) served DeKalb and Fulton counties and the city of Atlanta (which is already in both of those counties). Since then, ARC membership has grown to its current size of 11 counties and 75 municipalities.
The ARC is one of 12 regional commissions throughout Georgia. The ARC is funded through a number of sources: local, state and federal government entities and private funds.
Largest cities in the region: Atlanta (pop. 499,868), Sandy Springs (pop. 108,163), Roswell (pop. 92,939), Johns Creek (pop. 82,575), Alpharetta (pop. 65,960), Marietta (pop. 61,026), Stonecrest (pop. 59,265), Brookhaven (pop. 56,807), Smyrna (pop. 55,867), Dunwoody (pop. 51,614), Peachtree Corners (pop. 42,237), Mableton (pop. 41,647), Milton (pop. 41,392), East Point (pop. 38,390), Peachtree City (pop. 38,367), Tucker (pop. 36,278), Woodstock (pop. 35,235), Redan (pop. 34,870), Douglasville (pop. 34,780), Canton (pop. 33,419), Kennesaw (pop. 33,366), Duluth (pop. 31,871), Lawrenceville (pop. 30,557), Chamblee (pop. 30,207), McDonough (pop. 29,332), Stockbridge (pop. 29,030), Union City (pop. 27,051), Sugar Hill (pop. 25,122), Decatur (pop. 24,891), Candler-McAfee (pop. 24,419), Acworth (pop. 22,397), Suwanee (pop. 20,980), Snellville (pop. 20,597), Forest Park (pop. 19,729), Fayetteville (pop. 19,015), North Druid Hills (pop. 18,074), Lithia Springs (pop. 17,545), Norcross (pop. 17,541), Conyers (pop. 17,393), Buford (pop. 17,110), Powder Springs (pop. 16,902), Fairburn (pop. 16,568), Holly Springs (pop. 16,474), North Decatur (pop. 15,833), Belvedere Park (pop. 15,028), Riverdale (pop. 15,000), Clarkston (pop. 14,730), Lilburn (pop. 14,488), College Park (pop. 13,925), Mountain Park (pop. 13,176), Vinings (pop. 12,546), Scottdale (pop. 11,196), Doraville (pop. 10,616), Lovejoy (pop. 10,272), Panthersville (pop. 10,164), Fair Oaks (pop. 9,447), Locust Grove (pop. 9,156), Gresham Park (pop. 9,148), Druid Hills (pop. 8,525), Hampton (pop. 8,391), Irondale (pop. 8,107), Tyrone (pop. 7,724), Austell (pop. 7,717), Dacula (pop. 6,893), Stone Mountain (pop. 6,702), Morrow (pop. 6,668), Conley (pop. 6,645), Hapeville (pop. 6,562), Palmetto (pop. 5,088), Grayson (pop. 4,669), Jonesboro (pop. 4,225).
The Board membership of the commission includes: 1) each county commission chairman in the 11-county region; 2) one mayor from each county (except Fulton County); 3) one mayor from the northern half of Fulton County and one mayor from the southern half of Fulton County; 4) the mayor of the City of Atlanta; 5) one member of the Atlanta City Council; 6) fifteen private citizens, one from each of the 15 multi-jurisdictional districts of roughly equal population, elected by the 23 public officials; and 7) one member appointed by the Board of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
The ARC is divided into numerous department covering a broad range of issues, from the region's growing senior population to region-wide transit issues to geographic information system data. The agency's structure and functions can be outlined as follows:
Each fall, the ARC gives awards for noteworthy new projects. The categories are:
The Chattahoochee River is a river in the Southeastern United States. It forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida and Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers and emptying from Florida into Apalachicola Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. The Chattahoochee River is about 430 miles (690 km) long. The Chattahoochee, Flint, and Apalachicola rivers together make up the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin. The Chattahoochee makes up the largest part of the ACF's drainage basin.
The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is a government agency in the U.S. state of Georgia. It was set up under former governor of Georgia Roy Barnes, in order to address mobility, air quality and land use and how they relate to the transportation needs of metro Atlanta, including both roads and public transit. It came about in large part because the numerous cities and counties in the region could not effectively work with each other to achieve a comprehensive solution to the area's traffic woes, and increasing summertime smog problems.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia is a United States district court which serves the residents of forty-six counties. These are divided up into four divisions.
Area code 770 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) serving all or part of 29 counties in North Georgia, including most of Atlanta's suburbs. It was created in 1995 in a split of numbering plan area (NPA) 404.
Area codes 678, 470, and 943 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. State of Georgia in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The area codes are assigned in an overlay plan to a combined numbering plan area (NPA) consisting of 404 and 770.
The Georgia State Patrol (GSP) was established in March 1937 in the U.S. state of Georgia and is a division of the Georgia Department of Public Safety. It is the primary state patrol agency for the U.S. state of Georgia. Although focused primarily on the enforcement of traffic laws and investigation of traffic crashes, the Georgia State Patrol (GSP) supports the efforts of all public safety agencies to reduce criminal activity, apprehend those involved, and respond to natural and manmade disasters.
Northwest Georgia is a region of the state of Georgia in the United States. It includes 12 counties, which at the 2010 census had a combined population of 753,032. Northwest Georgia includes some of the southernmost portions of the Appalachian Mountains, as opposed to Northeast Georgia, which holds the southernmost Blue Ridge, known locally as the North Georgia Mountains. Largest cities in the region: Rome, Dalton, Cartersville, Calhoun, Dallas, Fort Oglethorpe, Cedartown, Bremen, LaFayette.
The Atlanta Area Council is a local council of the Boy Scouts of America. It serves 13 northern Georgia counties: Carroll, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton, Gwinnett, Haralson, Newton, Paulding, Pickens, and Rockdale.
Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixth-largest in the United States, based on the July 1, 2023 metropolitan area population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Its economic, cultural, and demographic center is Atlanta, and its total population was 6,307,261 in the 2023 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Delta Community Credit Union is a credit union headquartered in Georgia, a state in the United States. Delta Community Credit Union has $8.5B in assets and more than 430,000 members. USA Credit Unions has ranked Delta Community as among the top 25 largest credit unions in the U.S. Members include residents in 16 Atlanta metro area counties. The credit union serves the following companies: Delta Air Lines, Chick-fil-A, RaceTrac and UPS. As a not-for-profit credit union, their earnings must be returned to their members. According to Credit Unions Online, "the largest credit union in Georgia is Delta Community Credit Union...". Delta Community is a state-chartered credit union organized under the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance and federally insured by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund. There are 30 branch offices. It is a member of CO-OP, formerly known as CU Service Centers, a nationwide cooperative that has 3,500 member credit unions with +5,000 branches.
The Transit Planning Board was a joint commission of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), and Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA).
Xpress is a regional commuter coach service operated as a partnership between the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) and Clayton, Cherokee, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Paulding, and Rockdale counties. As of 2015, 34 Xpress routes are in operation. Operators of Xpress are contracted through Professional Transit Management and American Coach. In Cobb and Gwinnett Counties Cobb Community Transit or Gwinnett County Transit provide Xpress service in addition to their own express services. Service hours are from roughly 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 pm weekdays, with most service being rush hours only. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 899,500, or about 3,600 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District is a water district that covers all of metro Atlanta, and the nearby part of its headwaters in north Georgia. Established by the 146th Georgia General Assembly in 2001, it includes 15 counties: Bartow, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, Paulding, and Rockdale.
The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is a state agency of Georgia, United States, headquartered in Avondale Estates, near Decatur and in Greater Atlanta. The agency operates juvenile correctional facilities.
The 1980 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 4, 1980, in Georgia as part of the 1980 United States presidential election. The Democratic Party candidate, incumbent President Jimmy Carter, won his home state of Georgia over former California Governor Ronald Reagan by 238,565 votes, one of just seven victories in the election.
The 1968 United States presidential election in Georgia was held on November 5, 1968. American Independent Party candidate George Wallace received the most votes, and won all twelve of the state's electoral college votes.
The 1972 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 7, 1972, as part of the 1972 United States presidential election. Georgia voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1932 United States presidential election in Georgia took place on November 8, 1932, as part of the 1932 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is the regional planning and intergovernmental coordination agency for the 10-county Atlanta area, including Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties, as well as the City of Atlanta. ARC also produces and collects data for a larger, 20-county area for air quality purposes. These include the 10 counties above, plus Barrow, Bartow, Carroll, Coweta, Forsyth, Hall, Newton, Paulding, Spalding and Walton counties.
With the addition of Forsyth, ARC now includes the following counties: Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, and Rockdale. […] Forsyth County will remain a part of the Atlanta Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is administered by ARC and is responsible for coordinating transportation planning for 21 counties in the greater Atlanta region.