Scenes from Black Panther were filmed at a quarry outside Stockbridge, GA. But in this battle, black residents aren't allowed to fight.
Stockbridge, Georgia has a growing reputation as “Hollywood South.” Not only is it home to several production offices and a growing community of creatives, it’s also the place where some of the scenes for Black Panther were filmed. But after the city voted in its first black mayor and all black city council, white residents of the area came up with a plan. Tuesday they will vote to rip away the most valuable parts of Stockbridge, including both the wealthiest residential areas and most lucrative business district, and attach them to a new, majority white town to be known as “Eagle’s Landing.” And most of the people of the predominately African American community that could lose its primary source of revenue don’t get to vote on the issue.
As City Lab reports, the originators of the Eagle’s Landing idea swear it’s not about race … it’s about cheesecake. While the city was having no trouble attracting “Bojangles’ and Waffle Houses,” those establishments are considered déclassé by the Eagle’s Landing eagles who wanted “Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Chang’s.” According to the woman who chairs the Committee for the City of Eagle’s Landing—which, of course, meets at a country club—the cheesecake people bypassed her community because the average income was not high enough. So she concocted a plan: scoop together a new community out of just high-income neighborhoods on the edge of Stockbridge.
It’s common for new towns to form out of unincorporated land. That’s the way most towns and cities begin. But in the case of Eagle’s Landing, all the communities the cheesecake people first put together were residential, and that’s a recipe for disaster. Incorporated cities need to provide services. The source of funding for most of those services is sales taxes. To sustain a town without instituting much higher property taxes, you need a business district, and there was no unincorporated commercial area next to the proposed town. So Eagle’s Landing came up with a “unique” solution—they would simply steal the business district of Stockbridge, along with the city’s most affluent residential areas.
To most people in Stockbridge, the idea seemed ridiculous. The state would never approve a plan to rip apart an already incorporated town and hand over the highest revenue areas to a new community. Then Georgia state officials did exactly that. If successful, the vote would leave behind two towns: Eagle’s Landing, complete with an average six-figure income and a ready-built commercial heart, making it very cheesecake worthy. And Stockbridge, stripped of both high-income residents and high-revenue businesses. Oh, and totally coincidentally, for sure, the resulting communities would be overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly black.
The “best” part about this plan—only those residents of Stockbridge who live in the areas that would move to Eagle’s Landing will be given a chance to vote on the change. Even though Eagle’s Landing would be getting almost half of Stockbridge, since the primary area being stripped from the town is commercial, there are far more residents in the unincorporated areas than in the included areas of the incorporated city. Georgia officials have approved an election today in which wealthy white around a majority black town can vote to destroy it and loot the scraps. They can pull the beating heart from an African American community. And black folks don’t get to vote on it.
The Eagle’s Landing plan seeks to merge into its boundaries the primest real estate and wealthiest households from the city of Stockbridge, leaving behind a smaller, mostly African American population with fewer resources to pay for Stockbridge city services. The Eagle’s Landing city proposal will be voted on via ballot referendum on November 6, but Stockbridge residents who live outside the Eagle’s Landing footprint—the people who will be most hampered by the division—are not eligible to vote on it. Meanwhile, neither lawsuits nor letters from global finance agencies warning that the proposal could wreck economies across Georgia have been able to stop it.
The proposed vote would divide the area currently held by Stockbridge in half along sadly appropriate lines—leaving behind a black community in the north, and a white community in the south.
But that mini-Mason-Dixon Line isn’t perfect. At the southern tip of the currently incorporated Stockbridge is a residential community where incomes are lower and residents are … less white. The plan to form Eagle’s Landing simply left that area out of its community. If the vote is approved, Eagle’s Landing would be formed in the middle of Stockbridge, leaving this area separated from the rest of the city.
What’s at stake now is whether Stockbridge could even continue to function if the Eagle’s Landing ballot is successful. The theoretical city of Eagle’s Landing is looking to claim nearly a third of Stockbridge’s population, and the assessed value of all the properties that Eagle’s Landing is looking to claim would amount to $379 million, more than half of Stockbridge’s total assessed property value.
Stockbridge would have to continue providing services to the remaining population—a population on both sides of Eagle’s Landing—with half its current revenue. It’s unclear if the city would even be able to repay outstanding municipal bonds that were financed and sold based on the current layout of the city.
The town of Stockbridge is growing, bringing in a diverse population and at the heart of an industry that’s driving revenue and raising the profile for a large section of the state. The account books of Stockbridge would be the envy of most cities and the vitality of the town is a wonder when compared to many towns of similar size. But the Eagle’s Landing vote could gut the town, upend its economy, and generate a disaster where none currently exists.
That better be good cheesecake.
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