The Infrastructure You Can't See

This editorial originally ran in the Fall 2026 edition of South Georgia Magazine.

"Friends and neighbors helping friends and neighbors." That's what Valdosta Mayor Scott Matheson said recently on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Politically Georgia podcast when asked what he would hope state and federal officials would see if they looked at how things are done in Valdosta.

It's a pretty simple response to a simple question, but it stuck with me. It identified something I've seen in our cities across this state for my entire professional life. And that's resilience.

When we talk about resilience, it's usually in regard to systems and plans. Backup generators, stronger infrastructure, and emergency plans ready to go. Those things are incredibly important, of course, and we've gotten better at putting them in place over the years. But systems and plans alone aren't what allows a city to respond when something goes wrong. People do.

That's what happened in Valdosta after Hurricane Helene blew through. To prepare for future weather events, the city needed a warming and cooling shelter that was storm ready. The building they had in mind was an old former senior center that Mayor Matheson described as "a glorified storage facility," and the hurricane had damaged it further. Instead of waiting for a grant or a bid from a contractor, city employees took to it and rebuilt it themselves. One city crew installed the bathroom fixtures. Another framed out the walls while others ran the wiring. They were city employees serving their community. And it wasn't just the city staff. The project came in under $50,000 with two $25,000 donations from local supporters.

The city named the building after Jeanette Newbern Coody, a local advocate who ran a shelter for years. City employees rebuilt the facility, neighbors paid for it, and it bears the name of someone who was dedicated to helping people. Friends and neighbors helping friends and neighbors.

None of this is unique to Valdosta, but it is a great example of what you'll find all across the state. Right now, somewhere in Georgia, a city crew is clearing a downed tree at 2 a.m. because someone called it in. Somewhere else, city employees are responding to a water main break, a fire or some other problem that can't wait until morning. Most of these things don't make headlines, but all of it builds the kind of trust a city needs when a storm arrives. At the local level, service isn't an abstract policy idea. It's the work people expect to get done.

This kind of trust doesn't show up in a city's budget. It comes from the simple fact that cities and local officials serve everyone, regardless of who they voted for or if they voted at all. The water line has to be repaired, the fire truck needs to show up, and the tree has to be cleared from the road. That's the real work of resilience: not the plan, but the trust that gets built long before the plan is ever needed.

For decades, Gallup polling has shown greater trust in local government than in either state and federal government. That trust isn't about resources or authority. Cities have less of both. What it comes down to, I believe, is proximity. Residents see the people doing the work. Officials see and interact with those that are impacted by their decisions. And employees are part of the communities they serve.

At the local level, challenges and opportunities are tangible. You can touch them, and you can see the results of the decisions made about them. Accountability is right there and personal in a way it can't be from a distance.

When local government is there for people, it builds trust. And that trust makes people more willing to work with it. To care, to get involved and to pitch in when something needs to be addressed. That's what Mayor Matheson is referring to when he hopes state and federal officials see "friends and neighbors helping friends and neighbors" when they look at Valdosta.

Physical infrastructure gets a lot of attention when we talk about making communities resilient. It should. But there's another kind of infrastructure that's just as important: the trust between people and the institutions close to them. It's hard to measure, takes years to build, can be damaged quickly, and matters the most when the community is facing its biggest challenges.

If we want Georgia's cities to keep weathering whatever comes next, be it storms, economic change, or challenges we can't yet anticipate, resilience has to mean more than plans and physical infrastructure. It also means recognizing and protecting the trust and relationships that made that shelter in Valdosta possible: friends and neighbors helping friends and neighbors. That's the kind of resilience that will outlast any single storm.