Northeast

In Athens-Clarke County, local officials will sometimes say they have an insulated economy thanks to the presence of the University of Georgia and its nearly 35,000 students. While that’s not exactly true, there is much to be said for having…

One of the newer residents of Gainesville lounges quietly near the intersection of Academy and Green streets. Her name is Lucile. She weighs 2,200 pounds, is 14 feet long and nearly 8 feet high. Believed to be the world’s largest…

Motorists who travel down U.S. Highway 129 toward Lee Street are greeted by a large building currently under construction on the Jefferson High School campus. The two-story structure, which will open in the 2014-15 school year, represents an atmosphere of…

Some 40 miles north of Atlanta, Bartow County once promoted itself as being not the big city, but a bucolic retreat from the hustle and bustle. These days the county’s proximity has proven to be the catalyst for some transformative…

In a resounding demonstration of Columbia County’s drawing power, Thunder over Augusta, the annual Armed Forces Day celebration, crossed county lines to relocate to Evans Towne Center Park in 2012. Last year the park also began hosting “Drive for Show,…

In Franklin County, two very distinct visions of Geor-gia exist side by side. This is a region where agriculture is still the largest employer and most land is devoted to raising crops and tending animals. It’s also a place increasingly…

  Athens-Clarke County is brimming with so much vitality that it is experiencing what Mayor Nancy Denson calls “the reverse broken window syndrome.” “If you’re on a street where there are a few broken windows, next thing you know, you…

  There is a statue of a chicken mounted on a 30-foottall column in downtown Gainesville. It is a symbolic figure, designed to remind everyone that poultry towers over mere mortals in its importance to the local and state economies.…

  Some communities become stuck in their past, but in Toccoa and Stephens County the past has become a ready springboard to the future. This rural county in northwest Georgia has found that assets like history, natural beauty and picturesque…

  It’s easy to think Georgia’s mountain communities are all the same – forests, waterfalls and lakes, quaint towns with gift shops and restaurants boasting “country cooking” – but Mitch Griggs, executive director of the Union County Development Authority (UCDA),…