On August 31 and September 1, Macon-Bibb County hosted the Georgia Municipal Association’s (GMA) Hub Cities Initiative’s annual two-day summit. This is a group of mayors and city managers from the 13 core cities of each of Georgia’s Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) outside of Atlanta, and they get together to discuss challenges and potential solutions that cities face. They hold three meetings a year, one of which is a two-day summit in a member’s city. This year, they chose Macon-Bibb as the host city.
“It’s been quite some time since this group has been in Macon-Bibb, and it was a great chance to really showcase all we’re doing to meet the challenges we face,” says Mayor Lester Miller. “The feedback I got from them at our next meeting was that we set the bar for finding innovative solutions and for being a host city.”
The two-day event consists of an afternoon of meetings and then a tour of local projects the next day. During the tour, members got to see:
- the ongoing renovations to the Macon Auditorium as part of the city’s bicentennial;
- renovations and upgrades to the Macon Mall to begin its revitalization, including the new the new 32-court indoor pickleball facility, Board of Elections Office, and spaces where other government offices will soon be located;
- construction of the new 12,000-person amphitheater, which has already announced a show booking, even before it’s completed; and
- the Brookdale Resource Center, which has served thousands of people experiencing homelessness by providing them a safe place to live, find jobs and housing, receive needed services, and more.
“Each of our cities face similar challenges, but the solutions won’t always be the same. I hope our visitors were able to learn something they could take back to their own communities to see if it would work,” says Mayor Miller. “I want to thank Visit Macon for their work in putting the two-day event together and creating a welcoming and fun event for our colleagues from around the state.”
About the Hub Cities Initiative
The Hub Cities Initiative was born out of the reality that Georgia’s future prosperity, in both economic and quality of life terms, is grounded in cities and the unique assets they offer. The role of city leaders, through policy making and community influence, is a key component in harnessing and leveraging our state’s economic potential.
The purpose of the Hub Cities Initiative is three-fold:
- to provide the leaders of the economic centers of the state (outside of Atlanta) networking opportunities to share ideas and to collaborate
- to provide a platform in which GMA can continue to amplify, in broad terms, the value of cities as the primary centers of economic activity in Georgia, and
- to provide a mechanism to identify and shape public policies that support the role of cities as the state’s economic centers.