Here’s noodle scratcher: Atlanta was the second largest growing metropolitan area between July 2006 and July 2007 as the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

Metro Atlanta continues to grow with no end in sight, ranking No. 2 in the nation for total population growth of metropolitan areas in the past year.”The jobs and the lifestyle here are attracting a whole lot of people,” said Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

The 28-county area that surrounds Atlanta added 151,063 people last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released today.

. . .
“The Atlanta area is viewed as a place of opportunity,” said Mike Alexander, research division chief of the Atlanta Regional Commission. People move here from California, New York and the Midwest for job prospects, promotions or to start their own businesses.

I’m guessing that Atlanta is a wonderful place to live and do business just like it’s boosterish Chamber of Commerce president says, except for one thing–The city of Atlanta is dying of thirst and has been for years:

An unprecedented drought stretching across the southeastern United States has forced some of the region’s largest cities to declare water emergencies.

The situation has become so serious that officials in Atlanta, where rainfall totals are more than 16 inches below normal, said they could run out of drinking water in a matter of weeks.

“Without any intervention, we are likely to run out of water in three months,” said Carol Couch, the director of the Environmental Protection Division in Georgia.

The drought has been sucking the city and its water sources dry.

“We have actually classified it as an exceptional drought,” said David Stooksbury, a climatologist at Georgia State. “Basically [it is] the type of drought that we expect to see about once in 100 years.”

It makes me question our collective ability to address serious issues–or even trivial ones–when a catastrophic decline in the most basic element of existence is not reflected in an area’s cost-of-living enough to retard population growth.