Civil Municipal Magazine Aug 2023

201 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 8 SNELLVI LLE , GA . when we recently spoke with Mayor Barbara Bender and City Manager Butch Sanders. “We’re very excited and looking forward to a big celebration,” Bender says of the city’s upcoming 100th birthday. “Snellville grew up as a bedroom community to the city of Atlanta. In the ’70s and ’80s, it was part of Gwinnett County’s really big boom, so Gwinnett and Snellville became a lot of residential housing and single-family developments back in the ’70s and the ’80s, and then the commercial development came along with that. “Another big point I’d like to make is that Snellville grew up around a crossroads,” she continues. “There were originally horse trails connecting Athens and Atlanta and then Lawrenceville to the southern end of Gwinnett. As the roads grew and the traffic grew, we lost any semblance of our downtown, so Snellville never really had a good core downtown area.” “About 20 years ago, the City and the leadership embarked on the steps to create a downtown For a Healthier Future Together LOOK TO NORTHSIDE Look to the experts at northside.com