What kind of city do Atlantans want? One where residents can afford to live.
In recent months, we have read plenty about the affordable housing crisis. In response, more public and private investment, more citizen support and more vocal public leadership are driving the development of affordable housing all around the metro area.
In fact, according to the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta’s Sarah Kirsch, Atlanta was fifth in the nation in affordable housing apartment production from 2020 to 2024. The crisis is acute not just in Atlanta but in cities and towns across Georgia.
Nonetheless, we are falling behind the growing need as high land costs driven by strong local economies are pushing housing prices further out of reach even for middle-income households.
Like a leaky bucket, metro Atlanta is losing between 1,000 and 1,500 unsubsidized but heretofore affordable housing units to the market annually.
Our current system of developing affordable housing is proving plainly insufficient.
Costs have strained middle- and lower-income earners
Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, emphasized what many say is the greatest barrier: lack of supply. Ryan Marshall, CEO of Pulte Homes, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, fingered the dense and myriad regulations as the greatest impediment to more supply.
In big cities especially, numerous interest groups can influence legislators in supporting regulations, particularly zoning, that foster their own goals, often traveling under NIMBY (not in my backyard). Single-family-only zoning functions as a virtual barrier every bit as effective as the stone walls around gated communities in keeping some people out while homeowners in many neighborhoods prosper.
The restricted supply of single-family, owner-occupied housing drives prices upward while large lot sizes and lower density push building costs higher.
Even as costs have risen, middle and lower-tier incomes and wealth have stagnated as the monied class has ballooned. The resulting wealth imbalance in Atlanta, as elsewhere, is staggering.
Homeowners (including this writer) prosper to the detriment of someone who must double up or drive further out to find affordable housing. This individual is then burdened by inadequate public transportation or the cost of owning a car (more than $8,000 annually in Georgia), but we all suffer from traffic congestion.
The most direct solution is to raise household income. The ability to physically move to opportunity has long been a reliable engine of prosperity for families, yet it has slowed dramatically in recent years.
Good developers flourish when their communities do, too
The research on the merits of economic mobility by Harvard University’s Raj Chetty reveals a critical reason why lower-income people stay trapped in pockets of poverty: entrenched segregation stymies the accessibility of positive networks that fuel job placement and upward mobility.
Making matters worse, affordable housing developers often build in lower-income communities where land is cheaper and developers face less resistance, furthering economic segregation. Reforming land use zoning regulations to increase density and allow smaller-size houses drives down costs, permitting a wider variety of housing types (especially “missing middle”) to be built in strategic areas in all neighborhoods, e.g., near transit, along transportation corridors or near job centers.
And building physical connectivity via transit and trails enables more neighborhoods to share in the prosperity of the city without depending solely on the automobile, recognizing the close link between housing affordability and transportation.
The PATH Foundation’s marvelous multiuse trails and the Beltline in Atlanta put into practice what the Urban Land Institute, the trade association of real estate development, promotes as a vision of “15-minute communities,” whereby within a 15-minute walk, one can access transit, trails, green space, retail and services. Increased connectivity for all neighborhoods reduces traffic congestion, improves air quality and offers potentially significant household savings.
Yet the first question citizens should ask is what kind of city do we want? Housing cannot be separated from larger economic and social outcomes. Yes, this will cost more money and political capital. But political change of itself will not bring the transformation we need.
Good developers know that if the community flourishes, their project will, too. The seventh verse in the 29th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah states it more eloquently: “Seek the welfare of the city ... and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
This question is at its root about social and cultural values — more the purview of the pulpit than the developer. As citizens, we must realize that our communities will be safer and better off economically if we look after all. Conversely, if we do not make progress on this front, the human cost of not doing so will trickle down to all.
Whether one’s perspective on the need for affordable housing is economic, political or moral, this larger vision of our community paves the way for essential cultural, political and economic change that leads to greater affordability and shared prosperity, a City for All by a city that influences everything.
Bruce C. Gunter is president of Atlanta-based Civitas Housing Group. He has been developing affordable housing of all types since 1985, having served on Habitat for Humanity International’s board of directors and for almost 25 years as CEO of Progressive Redevelopment, Inc., at one time the largest nonprofit developer and owner of affordable housing in the state.