Home » News » USA: The white dream of “Buckxit” – America threatens a dangerous precedent

USA: The white dream of “Buckxit” – America threatens a dangerous precedent

Aus from Bill White’s point of view, his home town of Buckhead, the richest and most beautiful neighborhood in Atlanta, has become a “war zone”. Crime, says the man, has risen dramatically. There are more break-ins and murders than before. You have to fear being shot everywhere: while shopping, filling up your car, while jogging. And the city administration does not care. “So it is time,” says White, “that we take matters into our own hands.”

What Bill White is planning amounts to a revolution. It should transform Buckhead and mean economic disaster for Atlanta. It might even have consequences for the state in which the metropolis is located, Georgia, and for all of America.

White, 54, owner of a consulting firm, chairs the Buckhead City Committee – a group that seeks to split the Atlanta neighborhood off and make it a city of its own. He’s fighting, you might say, for the buckxit.

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That sounds a little crazy, but White’s chances are not bad. He convinced several MPs to support the Buckxit and to write a corresponding bill. The Georgia Parliament plans to vote on it next year.

In the event of a positive vote, a referendum will follow, but not everywhere in Atlanta, only in Buckhead. According to surveys, 55 to 60 percent of the people there want independence. “If everything goes well,” says White, “Buckhead City will be born in the summer of 2023.”

In America, smaller towns and cities merge again and again, but Buckhead City would be the first in the country’s recent history to be created in the opposite direction: by splitting off from an important metropolis. Atlanta is one of the most populous cities in the southern United States, a real economic powerhouse, home to Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, UPS, and CNN.

Buckxit would plunge Atlanta into crisis

And Buckhead is Atlanta’s economic heart. Bank towers, luxury hotels and fashion boutiques are concentrated on 62 square kilometers. Only a few minutes’ drive west of the glittering skyline are villas with wide courtyard entrances and large swimming pools. This is where White and many of the 90,000 other Buckheadians live.

“We want a divorce,” says White now, and like at the end of a marriage, Buckhead’s secession is all about one question: Who gets what? Atlanta would go away empty-handed. The city is losing a fifth of its population and 40 percent of its tax revenue, according to a study by the Committee for a United Atlanta.

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This is an initiative that seeks to thwart White’s plans. According to her, a buckxit could be felt in almost all areas of public life and should plunge many institutions in Atlanta into financial difficulties: including schools, the police and local transport.

But that’s not all. “The spin-off of Buckheads,” says Edward Lindsey, co-leader of the counter-movement, “would set a dangerous precedent.” Other affluent neighborhoods in America, Lindsey says, could suddenly try to break away from their cities as well. Lindsey believes a buckxit would have “destabilizing consequences” for all of Georgia – and possibly other parts of the United States.

In fact, there are four districts in Cobb County, which borders Atlanta – and Buckhead – to the north, and they want to go on alone: ​​East Cobb, Lost Mountain, Mableton, and Vinings all expect higher income than expenditure after a targeted separation.

141 murders in the shade of oaks and magnolias

Buckhead would definitely benefit. After the split, the quarter would earn $ 203 million more annually than it does today, according to an analysis commissioned by the separatists. The expenses would also be higher, for example because White and his people want to build new police stations and rehabilitate streets.

Buckheads Lenox Square, Atlanta, Georgia Getty ImagesGetty Images – –

Lenox Square, Downtown Atlanta. Belongs to Buckhead too

Quelle: Getty Images

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But the bottom line, they say, would be an increase of $ 113 million. The new guards are White’s priority. Buckhead lies in the shade of oaks, pines and magnolias, the quarter is a green oasis, it looks like an ideal world – but the impression is deceptive. In Atlanta’s Police Zone 2, to which Buckhead belongs, there have been 141 murders this year, 13 more than from January to the end of November 2020 and 51 more than in the same period in 2019.

It’s something you can see all over America: the mental stresses of the pandemic – the lockdowns, the isolation, the fear – have led to more violence. White accuses Atlanta’s left ex-mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of not doing anything about it. She was in office until November 30th.

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But there are other reasons for the buckxit dream. One is that White’s group fears their beautiful neighborhood will be ruined. Atlanta urgently needs more housing, as real estate prices are rising rapidly. The city planners believe the population will double by 2050 to more than a million. That’s why new apartment buildings are to be built – including in Buckhead. A scandal, think White and his team.

Buckhead voted for Trump

As is so often the case in America, it should also be about what people use the unsettling term “race” for Germans to describe, “race”: black and white. 50 percent of Atlanta’s residents are black, including ex-Mayor Bottoms and her newly elected successor Andre Dickens.

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In Buckhead, on the other hand, almost only white people live. There is now the phenomenon in several US cities that white citizens do not feel sufficiently represented politically. And finally, the big parties also play a role, the Democrats and the Republicans. All over the country, their supporters face each other irreconcilably, even in Atlanta. The city voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Only one neighborhood chose Donald Trump: Buckhead.

The Buckxit campaign is now on its final spurt. White and his team tirelessly place posters, shoot promotional videos and call for donations. And it’s supposedly going well. In the past few months, it is said by the group, almost a million dollars have been raised. Some particularly wealthy families would have given $ 100,000 each. Divorce from Atlanta is worth a fortune to some.

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