Rising home prices and worsening traffic show why workforce housing matters
Metro Atlanta added roughly 75,000 residents per year over the past five years, but housing construction has not kept pace — particularly in the workforce housing segment serving teachers, nurses, first responders and service workers.
The causes are multiple, including construction costs, land prices and labor shortages.
But the dominant constraint, as Glaeser and Gyourko demonstrated in their widely cited National Bureau of Economic Research analysis, is regulatory — specifically zoning.
Restrictive zoning affects the health, safety and economic well-being of Atlantans.
An Atlanta policeman told me he commutes four hours a day in traffic. He bought his home in 2010. If he were to buy it today it would cost three times as much, and he could not afford to work in Atlanta.
He said Atlanta’s police salaries have not kept up with the city’s high cost of living, especially housing.
With many unfilled positions and upcoming retirements, APD will need to hire hundreds of officers over the next few years. He said he believes that without better access to affordable housing, Atlanta will be unable to fill all its positions. Atlanta could a be safer place to live if its police department were fully staffed. There would be more proactive patrols, faster response times and stronger community engagement.
Workers struggle to support their families and save
Health care centers face a shortage of their essential midlevel workers and support staff, such as nurses, medical technologists and receptionists.
One technologist told me he left a management level position at a hospital inside the Perimeter to work as a technologist at a center much closer to his home.
He gave up considerable salary to save two hours of commuting each day. Health care systems have hired temporary employees as replacements at more than twice the cost. The higher cost of personnel contributes to higher health care costs. We pay for these as higher premiums, higher deductibles and worse access to care.
Atlantans spend hours each day in traffic. It is projected to increase as more people move to the city.
Traffic will not only increase because more people will be on the roads, but they will commute longer distances so they can afford a good home.
Driving in traffic increases the auto emissions we inhale, leading to worsening asthma and coronary artery disease. Traffic can be stressful and negatively affect our mental health. Long commutes result in less time to exercise, relax and be with our loved ones.
Child care, food and utilities costs have soared since the pandemic. Housing prices have skyrocketed. Many now experience financial strain and economic hardships. Workers struggle to support their families and save for retirement. These have long term negative consequences on our health and economic well-being.
Here’s how the average person can get involved
Individuals can act now to improve housing affordability. Atlanta is undertaking its first comprehensive zoning rewrite in more than 40 years. The initiative, known as ATL Zoning 2.0, was released in December 2025. It is more than 1,000 pages and considered by housing advocates and real estate developers to be too complicated to make a significant difference in lowering housing costs and most likely will increase housing prices.
It is important to understand what types of zoning reforms improve the health and economic well-being of city’s residents.
Charlotte implemented a zoning reform, Unified Development Ordinance, such as duplexes and triplexes for most residential lots with excellent effect.
The National Housing Crisis Task Force, co-chaired by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, recommends evidence-based zoning reforms.
For an individual to advance evidence-based zoning policies, one successful way is to write your City Council member and Dickens. They hear disproportionately from opponents of change.
Another important way is to join your neighborhood planning unit and/or your neighborhood association. A city councilman told physicians the most power for zoning reform resides in the NPU. Have honest conversations with your community about what workforce housing actually looks like — duplexes, accessory dwelling units, not towers — may be best in your neighborhood.
In my experience, the majority who show up at NPU meetings oppose any change and are not representative of broader neighborhood opinion. At a neighborhood meeting last year, I spoke in favor of a proposal to rezone an area from commercial to mixed-use and was shouted at. Afterward, three people pulled me aside to say they agreed with me but had been afraid to speak. We won that zoning revision.
The silent majority in most Atlanta neighborhoods is more pragmatic about housing than the meeting dynamics would suggest.
A third effective way is to become involved and/or contribute to the housing advocacy groups whose goal is to make housing more affordable for all, but especially for lower and middle-income Atlantans. These include Habitat for Humanity, Partners for Homes, Partnership for Southern Equity, HouseATL and Abundant Housing Atlanta.
Dr. Florence LeCraw is an anesthesiologist and an adjunct professor at Georgia State University. She is on the board of the Medical Association of Atlanta and chairs their Task Force on Social Drivers of Health.
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