Business View Civil and Municipal | June 2022

18 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 6 a, Georgia I n 1980, Alpharetta, Georgia was just a rural town with only 3000 residents. “There was not really a central business district in the sense of most southern towns,” recounts Alpharetta Mayor Jim Gilvin. “It wasn’t built on the railroad line. It wasn’t built near a river with a port. There was no transportation network. There were 3000 people here and most of them lived on farms.” But then that all changed. Investors, seeing the potential of the city’s location just outside Atlanta, decided to install fiber optic cable in the area. What was once a primarily agricultural community quickly drew the attention of data centers and technology companies. “So the City of Alpharetta has evolved into not only a great place to live, raise a family, and enjoy your life, but it’s a great place to do business – especially for technology business,” T E C H N O L O G Y H U B O F T H E S O U T H