Atlanta Regional Commission


The Atlanta Regional Commission is the regional planning and intergovernmental coordination agency for the metro Atlanta, Georgia, USA region, defined as the 10-county area of Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties, including the city of Atlanta. It also serves as the metropolitan planning organization for those and ten more counties in the region: Barrow, Bartow, Carroll, Coweta, Forsyth, Hall, Newton, Paulding, Spalding, and Walton counties.
ARC and its predecessor agencies have coordinated the planning efforts in the region since 1947, when the first publicly supported, multi-county planning agency in the United States was created. At that time, the Metropolitan Planning Commission served DeKalb and Fulton counties and the city of Atlanta. Since then, ARC membership has grown to its current size of 10 counties and 63 municipalities.
The ARC is one of 12 regional commissions throughout Georgia. The ARC is funded through a number of sources: local, state and federal government entities and private funds.

Membership

The Board membership of the commission includes: 1) each county commission chairman in the 10-county region; 2) one mayor from each county one mayor from the northern half of Fulton County and one mayor from the southern half of Fulton County; 4) the mayor of the City of Atlanta; 5) one member of the Atlanta City Council; 6) fifteen private citizens, one from each of the 15 multi-jurisdictional districts of roughly equal population, elected by the 23 public officials; and 7) one member appointed by the Board of the .

Agency structure and functions

The ARC is divided into numerous departments, covering a broad range of issues, from the region's growing senior population to region-wide transit issues to geographic information system data. The agency's structure and functions can be outlined as follows:
Each fall, the ARC gives awards for noteworthy new projects. The categories are:
The ARC's 10-county intergovernmental-coordination area has a surface area of 2973.72 square miles, and its 20-county MPO area has a surface area of 6256.87 square miles.