What makes up metro atlanta

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Heather gives lucidity to the complex topic of the future of work through her illuminating graphic frameworks and powerful metaphors, all backed by deep research. In , LinkedIn ranked her as its number one global voice for education. Atlanta Regional Commission. About the Atlanta Region. Show Source. Atlanta Median Age Atlanta Age Dependency Atlanta Sex Ratio Female , Male , Atlanta Population by Age. Rate of Home Ownership. Atlanta Households and Families. Atlanta Households by Type.

Atlanta Educational Attainment by Sex over The highest rate of high school graduation is among islander people with a rate of The highest rate of bachelors degrees is among asian people with a rate of Atlanta Educational Attainment by Race. Average Earnings. Average Male. Average Female. Atlanta Earnings by Educational Attainment.

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Rate Poverty Female Unemployed Atlanta Income by Household Type Loading Such events are very rare so far inland. Since , some metro counties have been hit more than 20 times by tornadoes, with Cobb 26 and Fulton 22 being two of the highest in the state. Note that some tornadoes may have occurred at the same time, or in two different counties.

The Dunwoody tornado in early April was the worst tornado to have struck the area. Since then, many counties have reinstalled civil defense sirens removed after the Cold War. A tornado struck downtown Atlanta in March Another struck the Georgia Governor's Mansion in The area experiences a winter storm with significant snowfall about once each year, however this can be extremely irregular. The only other measurable snows on that date were 1. A trace last fell on Christmas in , and a dozen other times before that.

A blizzard see: Storm of the Century caught much of the Southeast off-guard in , dumping 4. Dallas, a suburb about 30 miles to the west-northwest received Some people were awakened by thunder and lightning in a very rare thundersnow event.

Several areas of northern Cobb County recorded over 15 inches 38 cm in snowdrifts. It is widely regarded as the snow event of the century for Atlanta, and is referred to as the "Storm of the Century", placing fifth in the city's snowfall records.

The only other recorded winter storm of comparable severity was the Great Blizzard of , which struck in February.

A blizzard hit on January 9—15 crippling the city and leaving schools out for the whole week. Ice covered roads and over eight inches of snow fell in some places with over a foot in the far northern metropolitan area. The heaviest snow, however, was in January , when 8. The second-heaviest was in , when a very late storm dumped 7.

The latest snow and freeze ever were in , when 1. Since , the earliest measurable snows were November 11 and Prior to March , the most recent major snow occurred at the beginning of , when up to 3 inches 7. As of , the stretch of five nearly or entirely snowless winters made for an extremely long period compared to average. This streak was ended in January when. The following year, the first widespread winter storm since dumped 4.

Much of it melted almost as fast as it was accumulating at mid-day, while eastern areas had thundersnow and cloud-to-ground strikes reported by lightning detection; it was an upper-level low from the Great Plains , while most major storms in the area occur with a typical surface low-pressure area traveling along the Gulf coast.

The snow tied with the blizzard and another storm for fifth-heaviest official daily snow in the city's recorded weather history. Areas to the due east and west often receive more snow than metro Atlanta, because the energy begins to transfer to a coastal low in the Atlantic, on its way to becoming a nor'easter.

Also the mountains to the northwest entrap shallow cold air. Average annual snowfall from to in Atlanta is 2. Due to two record-breaking heavy storms during the averaged period, it is actually March that is statistically second with 0. This is followed by February with 0. The latest was April 25, when 1. Four other April snows have been recorded since , the most recent significant one being April 3, Flurries occurred in on the afternoon of Halloween , marking only the third recorded October snow.

A mid-December snow a record 2. Ice storms have also occurred in the area. Two hit the city a week apart in January , the second one while Atlanta was hosting the Super Bowl , which was felt to affect the city's future chances for hosting it again. The well-remembered ice storm was brutal.

A January snowstorm, which came to be called "Snow Jam 82" by the media and those who lived through it, also crippled the city just as bad as ice can, striking in the afternoon while everyone was at work, several hours earlier than expected.

Tens of Thousands of people were stranded in the city, abandoning cars on every road and freeway and booking hotels to capacity, unable to get home to the suburbs. The Southeastern U. Most of the area's drinking water is stored in Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona , which reached record low levels in December Up through September was the driest year on record in over 75 years, second only to and Some local authorities and water systems had already taken such measures.

It was the first time the state had enacted such a ban. Throughout the 3 year drought the Atlanta Metro occasionally experienced smoke from the wildfires in south Georgia, causing the local air to become dangerous for everyone.

The severe record drought which affected the region starting in late finally began to abate significantly after heavy fall rains in , and had ended by The historic drought ended with historic flooding in The Atlanta floods affected the entire area on September 21, with parts of eastern Paulding, northern Douglas, and southwestern Cobb counties getting around 20 inches mm of rain in a week, with half of that falling in just 24 hours near the end of the period.

Douglasville received the most rain in 24 hours than any other city in Metro Atlanta, the city received over The USGS calculated it to be a greater-thanyear flood; the National Weather Service stated that chances of that much rain anywhere in the region is 0.

Some freeways closed temporarily, and several small bridges and culverts were ruined and will take months to replace.

Many homes in the area were completely destroyed. Occasional heavy rains and flood advisories continued through early February Other droughts have also ended in lesser floods, including in The flooding has also ended as of The area's prolific rains are drained by many different streams and creeks.

The main basin is that of the Chattahoochee River , running northeast to southwest. The southern suburbs are drained by the Flint River , and the east-southeastern ones by the Oconee River and Yellow River. By , the metro area was using million US gallons 1,, m 3 of water per day about 80 US gallons L per person per day from these rivers. The need for water is seen as a barrier to further growth in the area, but permanent measures for non-emergency water conservation have never been put in place.

The state legislature has refused to pass a requirement for low-flow toilets to be installed in homes that are sold, bowing to pressure from the real estate sales industry.

At a rate of 50 acres 20 hectares per day, the deforestation brought by land development has had a significant impact on area watersheds. They now flood far more rapidly and to a much greater extent than prior to development. This has pushed many people into flood plains, something they often find out only when it is too late.

As a result many area municipalities have imposed more rigorous development standards on storm water management. A few jurisdictions have begun to implement a stormwater fee , though none of the fees are based on the actual amount of damaging runoff each property produces, mainly from pavement and lack of tree cover and natural leaf litter.

The low-density residential subdivision development that dominates the metro Atlanta suburbs has historically not been required to replace lost tree inventory. Because of larger lot sizes, and natural-looking architecture such as California contemporary, older neighborhoods typically have many mature forest trees, except in cases where they have been destroyed by homeowners, despite the decrease in property values this causes.

Increasing density allowed by zoning since the s has meant fewer and fewer trees left, and by the s it became common for developers to completely clear-cut dozens of acres of forest and bulldoze all hills flat to build generic tract housing , often with tightly packed homes nearly touching each other and up against the street. However, over the past decade some area cities and counties have revised their tree ordinances to require tree recompense to be equal to or greater than the pre-development tree density, trying to ensure a future tree canopy.

Rather than leaving trees on each home lot as before, this typically involves a set-aside of green space in each development, with most other areas still clear-cut. Even when some trees are replaced, it is with a single type of trees planted the same distance from each other, rather than different trees at random placement and age as in the native forest.

These numbers are in addition to the only marginally-permeable lawns. This reduced permeability also prevents the water table from refilling as quickly as it should, as runoff is diverted into stormwater drainage systems.

Disputes over water are becoming increasingly common, with both Alabama and Florida filing lawsuits and threatening injunctions to prevent Georgia from taking too much water, mostly for metro Atlanta. South Carolina also threatened when a pipeline east to the Savannah River was mentioned even informally.

The state has now been ordered by a judge to reduce withdrawals from the Chattahoochee south of Lanier to s levels within three years , something that would create an immediate emergency water shortage if it were actually enforced. This was done because it was ruled the U. Congress never authorized the use of the lake as a water supply. The native forest canopy is mainly oak , redbud, hickory , tuliptree, pine , and sweetgum , with chestnut having been common decades before in what is now considered oak-hickory forest.

Traveling from the south, the metro area is generally the first area in which autumn leaf color can be seen, due to the different trees growing at the higher elevation and latitude.

Underneath , the flowering dogwood is very common, the black cherry are quite prolific, with mulberry popping up sometimes as well.

Sourwood is also in its native range, and is easily identified by the fact that it turns fiery red in early October, much brighter and weeks earlier than most other trees which usually peak in early November.

Shrubby plants include blackberry , horsechestnut, sumac , and sometimes hawthorn. Virginia creeper , poison ivy, and briar [ disambiguation needed ] are common vines. Common garden plants include dogwood, azalea , hydrangea , flowering cherry, maples , pin oak , red-tip photinia, holly , juniper , white pine , magnolia , Bradford pear, forsythia , liriope mondograss , and English ivy.

Lawns can be either cool-season grasses like fescue and rye , or warm-season like zoysia and bermudagrass which turn brown in late fall. A few homeowners associations actually prohibit green grass in the winter. Native to the nearby mountains, maples are now one of the most common landscape trees for new homes and parking lots, giving their color in the fall instead of spring. When planted close to buildings which provide shelter and radiate heat , they can retain some of their color into December, especially if November has been warm.

Common lawn weeds are wild strawberry, violet, wild onion [ disambiguation needed ] , and of course the ubiquitous dandelion, crabgrass, and plantain. By far the most notorious introduced species is kudzu , a highly invasive species from Japan which climbs and smothers trees and shrubs. New effective herbicides as well as increased development of formerly rural areas has greatly reduced kudzu in the metro area although still quite common elsewhere in Georgia.

Wisteria planted decades ago by farmers in then-rural areas has become wild and is common in undeveloped forests. Some vines exceed 50 years of age and cover dozens of acres of forest, creating a dense, purple explosion each spring.

Japanese honeysuckle is extremely common; its fragrance an early summer delight. A common garden plant, the Chinese privet, has escaped to become the state's most invasive non-native plant species.

Among mammals , the eastern gray squirrel is by far the most ubiquitous, stealing birdseed from the bird feeders which many locals maintain. Chipmunks and small brown rabbits are common, but it is relatively rare to hear of them doing any damage. Home to over six million people in , metro Atlanta experienced the fourth-largest population increase of all MSAs in the nation — an increase of approximately , people from to Atlanta is the 7 metro in the nation for the most net migration.

There is no majority racial group in metro Atlanta. The largest racial groups are white Atlanta is the capital city of Georgia. The City of Atlanta is governed by a mayor and a member city council that is managed by the council president.