This video and story about Kirkwood is one of seven about neighborhood issues in the Atlanta mayor’s race by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Kirkwood is a historic neighborhood in East Atlanta, bound by DeKalb Avenue on the north end and Memorial Drive and I-20 to the south. The neighborhood has a walkable retail and restaurant district clustered mostly along one street in between rows of historic neighborhoods. It was a historically white suburb when it was first built in 1899, but then became mostly Black after white flight in the mid 20th century. It is now majority white again.
Demographics, according to 2019 data from Neighborhood Nexus:
Population: 6,487
Median household income: $110,242
Median age: 35
Race: 59.8% white, 30.4% Black, 2.4% Hispanic or Latino, 1.3% Asian, 6.1% other
Unemployment rate: 7% (this could have changed since COVID)
Poverty rate: 9.7%
Median home value (of owner-occupied units): $365,281
Percent of rental units: 30.7%
Percent of owner-occupied units: 69.3%
Percent of rents above $1,000: 53.4%
ABOUT THE VIDEO: Video by Ryon Horne, Tyson Horne and Hyosub Shin. Reporting by Sarah Kallis.