If You Don't Like It, Take Your City And Leave!

About three years ago in Atlanta, I started seeing "Buckhead City" signs in the yards of some of my neighbors, as well as around some of the local businesses in the area. After looking it up, I discovered that these signs were referring to a movement for Buckhead, the northern part of Atlanta, to leave Atlanta and become its own city. Many people were frustrated with the leadership in Atlanta, and felt like they did not have the adequate representation they were entitled to based on the taxes they paid. They felt like the Atlanta government was acting against what they believed to be their own self interest, and they felt a new smaller city could more accurately word towards these interests.

I think in some way this would be an example of Tiebout's concept of voting with your feet. In this case the people would not actually be moving (their feet would not be very involved), but they would be leaving one city to join another where government actions line up more with the things they want. Further, the existing city of Atlanta would have seen real changes in their spending habits from this, as they would have been losing a large source of their tax revenue. Atlanta would have had to then make adjustments to raise its population after losing this significant chunk, according to Tiebout's claims.

To this point, the Buckhead City movement have not come to fruition, and likely wont. Part of this was that creating a new city would have been very costly, and would have required Buckhead to completely recreate many existing and working functions of the city of Atlanta. But another part of this was that the new mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, knew this would have consequences for the city of Atlanta, and acted to make sure Buckhead residents felt heard.  In his Inaugural Address, Dickens argued for "Atlanta Unity", saying "We don't need separate cities. We must be one city with one bright future." 

I think this move from Dickens proves that Tiebout is onto something. To prevent the move from happening Atlanta had to make itself more attractive for people that would prefer to be elsewhere, to avoid severe population and tax revenue loss. In here we can see economic incentives truly do drive the formation and transformation of cities.