Has “sprawl” returned to metro Atlanta?

The Great Recession stalled metro Atlantans’ surge northward in search of bigger, cheaper homes, but the region’s exurban counties are undergoing a huge building boom.

More than 415 subdivisions across Barrow, Bartow, Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall and Jackson counties experienced construction in 2015, according to Metrostudy. More than 5,800 homes were sold — nearly three times as many as 2011.

"We never really gave up our dream of a house in the suburbs. We just put it on hold temporarily, " says Jeff Humphreys, a University of Georgia economist. "And now we are back to our sprawling ways."