About Athens

originally published August 8, 2008

A few words about the government and community and where to learn more. Plus: A look at UGA, how to get where you're going, and a few key things to know if you want to keep The Man off your back.

What’s with the Name?

“Athens-Clarke County.” Hyphenated. That’s the moniker that resulted when the smallest county in the state merged governments with a growing city of Athens in 1991. There were a few unsuccessful attempts at “unification,” as it’s called, prior to that, but the early ’90s saw the idea stick. The resulting government structure made for an elected mayor at the head of a 10-member county commission, two of whose members represent “super-districts” that cover half the county, each made up of four “regular” commission districts. The city-county manager and his professional staff carry out the day-to-day work of government. There are still some vestiges of the old city-county division in the realm of government services (sewer, water, trash and recycling pick-up), but those are gradually disappearing. As for the name, just don’t be confused if, more often than not, you simply see the abbreviation “ACC.”

The good thing about having one local government in a town the size of Athens is that the government is really surprisingly accessible. Its self-published guide to services, “ACC From A to Z,” is a good place to start, and it’s worth keeping in mind in general that the local government is not the bureaucratic behemoth that you often find in bigger cities.

As an example, the “Neighborhood Notification Initiative” provides an easy way for the ACC Planning Department to put citizens on email listserves that serve to keep them informed about building plans, re-zoning applications and other changes coming to their own ’hoods. The local government is also a leader in helping Athens be as green as it is: there’s a tree ordinance here, recycling options are plentiful, and water conservation has been a big focus - with great success - in the midst of the current drought, just to name a few points.

The best part about the government? Meetings of the ACC Mayor and Commission are shown on cable channel 7 and on the Internet at www.athensclarkecounty.com. That website is also home base for meeting schedules and agendas, as well as guidelines for giving public comment, which nearly all meetings are open to. So, in a word: participate!

UGA 4 U

Across Broad Street in the middle of downtown Athens sits an alternate universe, another city equally as populous as its host. The University of Georgia and Athens are one, and yet they are distinct. UGA is the oldest state university in the nation in the sense that it was chartered in 1785. North Carolina actually got a building up and began classes before UGA, because our university’s funding scheme was based on selling off lands belonging to the Creek Indians. The Creeks went to war trying to protect their beloved hunting grounds, delaying until 1801 the construction of Old College, still on campus and recently renovated. Old College was a mini-university in itself, housing students, professors and classrooms.

Since 1801, UGA has grown into a large and diverse university, and Athens has kept pace, with a big chunk of its economy devoted to housing, feeding, clothing and entertaining university students, staff and faculty.

Because of the popularity of the University of Georgia football team, Athens is transformed on game days into the mecca of the Bulldog Nation. When the Dogs are playing in Sanford Stadium in the middle of the campus, downtown Athens is filled to capacity with fans wearing red and black and whatever puny colors the opponents bring. Townspeople know to steer clear before and after games. During the games, downtown is yours for the asking, as long as you don’t need a parking place. This year game days fall on Saturdays Aug. 30, Sept. 6, Sept. 27, Oct. 11, Oct. 18 and Nov. 29. Forewarned is forearmed, or stiff-armed.

For University of Georgia information, the starting point is always online at www.uga.edu, where, in addition to all the info about classes, requirements, schedules, etc. is also to be found the Master Calendar, and notices of educational and entertainment events open to the public. Also, at www.uga.edu/maps you can download a plethora of campus maps to supplement the one in the center of this Guide. The UGA libraries, at www.libs.uga.edu, put you in touch with that vast reservoir of information in a user-friendly format that will also allow you to call user-friendly people if you need more help (706-542-3251). If you have neither a phone nor a computer, just walk over to the library and go to the reference desk.

While it is focused on students, staff and faculty, UGA also provides a wealth of services and events that are open to the general public - many of them free: the libraries, the bus system, lectures, sports (except football, baseball, basketball and gymnastics), museums and galleries, computers and Internet access in various buildings such as the Student Learning Center. The beautifully maintained campus is always open for a pleasant stroll, though not recommended late at night. The stately grounds contain several little nodes, like the Founders Garden on Lumpkin Street, that are perfect for picnicking or just sitting quietly to escape the pressures of quantum physics. Many other events and services, though not free of charge, are open to the public: dining halls, concerts, plays, movies, the bookstore, parking decks.

The Calendar in Flagpole and at www.flagpole.com lists campus entertainment and educational events weekly.

Number of Athenians

101,489 by the 2000 Census

110,490 by a 2007 estimate

OneAthens

At the start of 2006, a group of local leaders announced an initiative to combat Athens’ very real, persistent, intergenerational and “endemic” poverty. Despite low rates of unemployment, Athens-Clarke is one of the poorest communities for its size in the country. The effort, originally called Partners for a Prosperous Athens, but now known by the name OneAthens, has been a collaboration among all kinds of involved citizens from various sectors of the community; at its center is a partnership among the local government, the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, UGA, the Clarke County School District, Family Connection/ Communities in Schools of Athens, and leaders of the local African-American Community. Its chairmen (business consultant Red Petrovs and Superior Court Judge Steve Jones) often term OneAthens a “continuous improvement process” - in other words, it’s ongoing, ever-expanding and always gradually looking for new solutions to a painfully old problem.

Keeping the Green

If you had to mentally map Athens, you might say that the countryside still forms a doughnut around the town, only a big bite’s been taken out of it on the west side, where sprawl has conjoined Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties. The remaining greenspace on the north, east and south sides of the city is no accident: in the late 1990s, Athens made a conscious decision to preserve that “greenbelt” with lower-density zoning, and enacted that plan in 2000 along with higher-density zoning in intown areas. In the years since then, “infill” development has kept up a steady pace - also, of course, no accident - but not without some concern that the pace isn’t a little too fast.

Athens and the HOPE Scholarship

The University of Georgia has always attracted most of its students from inside the state, and that trend was strengthened in the mid-1990s with the creation of the HOPE Scholarship, former Governor Zell Miller’s lottery-funded free ride for all Georgia high school graduates who can earn and maintain a B average. The main impact on the city of Athens has been that the HOPE Scholarship means more students stay in-state who previously might have gone to public or private schools elsewhere, and that their parents spend what they would have spent on tuition to get those kids nice apartments and even nicer cars (or, more often, SUVs). The demographic student-body shift changed the face of Athens in ways that are still being felt today.

Books About Athens

• Strolls Around Athens, William Tate, Observer Press (Athens, 1975) [out of print]
• The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History, 1785–1985, Thomas G. Dyer, University of Georgia Press (Athens, 1985)
• A Portrait of Historic Athens & Clarke County, Frances Taliaferro Thomas, University of Georgia Press (Athens, 1992)
• Athens, Georgia, a Treasury of Historic Architecture, Mari L. Berry, Lisa Vogel and John Kissane, Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation (Athens, 1993)
• A Pictorial History of the University of Georgia, 2d ed., F. N. Boney, University of Georgia Press (Athens, 2000)
• Athens: A Pictorial History, James Reap, The Donning Company; 3rd edition (Virginia Beach, 2001) [out of print]
• A Guide to Architectural Styles in Athens, Georgia, John C. Waters and Julie Knowlton, Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation (Athens, 2001)
• A Story Untold: Black Men and Women in Athens History, Michael L. Thurmond, Conoly Hester (Editor), Green Berry Press (Athens, 2001)
• A Post Card History of Athens, Georgia, Gary L. Doster, Athens Historical Society (Athens, 2002)
• Fire in a Canebrake, Laura Wexler, Scribner (New York, 2003)
• Party Out of Bounds: The B-52s, R.E.M., and the Kids Who Rocked Athens, Georgia, Rodger Lyle Brown, Everthemore Books (Atlanta, 2004)
• Athens Sketchbook, Loran Smith, Indigo Custom Publishing (Athens, 2005)

Welcome Centers

The Athens Welcome Center (280 E. Dougherty St., 706-353-1820), at the northeast corner of downtown, is a worth a visit itself. Housed in 1820s Church-Waddel-Brumby House, the city’s oldest surviving residence, the welcome center coordinates various guided tours and “podtours” of Athens, has plenty of maps and information for the newcomer or visitor, and is generally a pleasant and helpful first stop.

At the south end of the UGA Campus, near where College Station Road intersects the 10 Loop, is the UGA Visitors Center (College Station Rd. & River Rd., 706-542-0842). The “Four Towers” building - a former dairy barn - that houses the center gives a clue as to how much the campus has changed over the years, and the 12-year-old visitors center provides plenty of introduction to the large, ever-growing campus through maps, guided tours and “virtual” tours as well.

Housed downtown at the Classic Center, the Athens Convention & Visitors Bureau (300 N. Thomas St., 706-357-4430) does a lot to promote Athens to out-of-towners and assists large meetings, conventions and those in need of group tours with free visitor’s guides and bulk quantities of printed material. The CVB also has a helpful new website.

Right next door to the more than 200-year-old Eagle Tavern in Watkinsville is the Oconee County Welcome Center (22 N. Main St., Bldg. B, 706-769-5197). This is home base for information on the growing rural areas just south of Athens. And no, the historic tavern is no longer functioning as a bar.

Getting Around

Downtown Athens - for all that’s going on there - is, actually, tiny. Its tininess can serve to skew your perspective on how big the rest of Athens is. Don’t be fooled! Walking or biking can be quicker options than you think if your destination is generally in an “intown” area. Sure, the hills are a pain at first, but (a) you get used to them, and (b) the BikeAthens bike map, in addition to color-coding streets with cyclist-safety ratings, includes topography so you can identify the flattest route. Also shown are bus stops - helpful because all city buses have bike racks mounted on their front bumpers, to get cyclists those longer distances more easily.

The growing greenway system is the city’s start at providing off-the-road options for walkers and bikers; at present it gets you from Dudley Park and the part of the North Oconee River nearest downtown all the way to Sandy Creek Nature Center, outside the loop on the north side of town; from there, it’s a four-mile hike to Sandy Creek Park on the county line, proving that you can traverse half the county pleasurably without an internal combustion engine.

As for mass transit: Well, there’s The Bus - i.e., the city bus - and then there’s the UGA bus. But don’t let that distinction bother you: Athens Transit is always free to all UGA faculty, staff and students (with valid campus ID), and the UGA buses are officially free and open to anybody in town. (In other words, gone are the days when you technically had to pretend to be faculty, staff or student while sneaking aboard.) So, say you’re in Five Points, or somewhere along Milledge Avenue, waiting for the city bus, and along comes UGA’s Milledge route - just hop aboard and get downtown or to the heart of campus in no time. Conversely, if the UGA bus only gets you as far as the Multimodal Transportation Center (a fancy name for the new bus station built with penny sales taxes and opened in 2007), don’t worry: that’s the hub for bus transfers all over Athens-Clarke. Several routes on Athens Transit make stops at major campus destinations, as well.

As for that multimodal station? The name came, in part, out of the hope that one day Athens will be the end of the line for a commuter train to Atlanta. Right on the old railroad tracks, the Multimodal Transportation Center sits rail-ready, so that one day you’ll be able to ride your bike to the bus stop, take the bus to the station, and hop a train to the state capitol. For the time being, long-distance transit options are limited to private shuttles to the Atlanta airport, connector flights out of Athens-Ben Epps airport, and bus service provided by Southeastern Stages out of its downtown station. The nearest Amtrak stations are in Atlanta and Gainesville, GA.

Lastly, there’s always the American way of getting around: driving. The truth is, it doesn’t take very long to get anywhere in Athens by car. While the Eastside, for instance, may seem like some far province, it’s really not - especially if you’re judging by Atlanta standards. The flip sides to automobile transport in Athens are that traffic gets a little bit heavier with each passing year, and that taxi service here has never amounted to as much as you might hope for in a city this mobile. But the cabs are there late at night if you need them, and they can, of course, provide the safest way home after a night on the town. Also, when they’re operating, UGA students in a volunteer group called WatchDawgs are a good, safe option for getting home late at night, too.

Rules of the Game

It was a big change for Athens’ nightlife when this local law took effect a few years ago, but smoking is prohibited indoors in all public places in Athens-Clarke County (as well as in all county parks).

The regs on drinking are pretty much common sense: no open containers in the public right-of-way (that’s what the railings along downtown sidewalks are for - to keep you and your drink where they belong), and this being Georgia (whether or not you consider this common sense), bars and package stores are closed every Sunday, though restaurants can pour. The rest of the week, package stores close at 11:30 p.m., and last call at bars is 2 a.m.

Fair warning: when you’re downtown, you’re on camera. The Police Department’s eyes in the sky are rolling 24/7 to keep tabs on things. Now you know!

The road signs downtown make it plain: “No Cruising.” Cruising is defined as passing the same point in your car more than three times in an hour; the law applies from midnight to 4 a.m. in the downtown area.

Last, but not least, there’s a suite of so-called “quality of life” ordinances designed to keep things fairly orderly in residential neighborhoods. These are things like not leaving your trash cans out too long, not parking cars in the yard, not parking couches in the yard, and so forth. Noise ordinances here are similar to most cities: late at night, at a certain distance, and yeah: you can definitely get a ticket.