A report released Tuesday about Atlanta’s changing neighborhoods tells a seemingly obvious story: Black residents, impoverished residents and those defined as rent-burdened increasingly live in areas of economic decline; white residents, those with higher educations and high median incomes have proliferated in places of economic expansion.
The City of Atlanta’s 2021 Neighborhood Change Report tracked populations and demographics from 2010 through 2018 using data from the American Community Survey, a program of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who campaigned in 2017 on a $1 billion affordable housing plan to keep longtime residents in the city, said the report would help her carry out that promise.
“This report is a key step in advancing our goals of launching initiatives that are designed to protect legacy residents and create housing that is affordable and accessible for all Atlantans,” Bottoms said in a prepared statement.
The report found that roughly a third of Atlanta’s 103 neighborhoods saw substantial change with the two most common categories dubbed Growth and the Low Income Displacement.
The report defines Low Income Displacement neighborhoods as those that had an increase in non-low income residents and a decline among those with low incomes, accounting for 16 neighborhoods identified in the report. There were 12 Growth neighborhoods, which saw a rise in non-low income residents and low-income residents.
Neighborhoods in both categories saw significant economic expansion.
“I see it all around,” said Joann Hardy, a resident of the Grove Park neighborhood, which the report briefly mentions as one with a sharp drop in the number of low income residents. “I see the houses going up and the people coming out of those houses.”
According to the report, five neighborhoods — one in west and four in south Atlanta — fell into a third category: Low Income Concentration. One third of residents in these neighborhoods were in poverty, a 39% increase since 2010.
One neighborhood, Center Hill in west Atlanta, saw economic decline and a drop in both low-income and non-low income residents.
Councilman Antonio Brown said that the findings did not surprise him, as they were all too evident in the lives of people who call his Westside council district home. He said generational poverty had afflicted the city for decades.
“I don’t need to a report to tell me what I already know,” Brown said.
The report also drew a direct connection between public investment and economic expansion. Neighborhoods with substantial growth and those that saw low-income residents displaced had larger areas of public investment, including new parks and portions of the Atlanta Beltline.
Center Hill and the five Low Income Concentration neighborhoods “had no areas of major public infrastructure investment,” the report said.
Councilman Matt Westmoreland, chair of the council’s Community Development and Human Services Committee, said the report echoes discussions among council members during the past 18 months.
“The city’s own public infrastructure investments are contributing to the displacement of our residents,” he said.
Westmoreland added that he appreciated the candor in some of the statements he read.
“There’s nothing to be gained by hiding the truth.”
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