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Has “sprawl” returned to metro Atlanta?

April 14, 2016

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."

Cheaper prices and homebuyers not averse to long commutes, or those who work nearby or from home, are expanding metro Atlanta's footprint ever closer to South Carolina.

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(Illustration: Marcie LaCerte for the AJC)

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