One of Atlanta‘s most renowned private universities now wants to be officially part of Atlanta.
Emory University, which sits on 631 acres in unincorporated DeKalb County north of Decatur, has announced that it has begun the process of being annexed into the City of Atlanta after several years of exploring the possibility.
Annexation has the potential to be a contentious issue, as the process tends to affect both school districts and electoral politics, though Emory said bringing its campus into the city would not have those effects.
An attempt to bring the nearby Druid Hills neighborhood into the city last year failed in the Georgia General Assembly. The move would have shaken up electoral politics in a city that in many ways still votes along racial lines.
For Emory, it’s simply a matter of aligning its address with its existing brand and international reputation, the university said in a statement Aug. 19:
Emory’s annexation into the City of Atlanta has always been viewed as one of the most viable, long-term options and one that provides consistency and alignment relative to the University’s marketing and branding initiatives. Emory already promotes its location as Atlanta, is known internationally as being located in Atlanta, routinely recruits faculty and students to Atlanta, and has an Atlanta address and zip code.
The prestige of Emory as an international university and Atlanta as a global city are inextricably linked.
One of the university’s other motivations seems to make a case for the extension of a Marta line to the campus, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
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