Posted on 03/11/2006 9:20:22 AM PST by HostileTerritory
In-town living. Live-work-play. Mixed income. The buzzwords of soft-core urbanism are everywhere these days in this eternally optimistic city, used in real estate advertisements and mayoral boasts to lure money from the suburbs and to keep young people from leaving.
Loft apartments roll onto the market every week, the public housing authority is a nationally recognized pioneer in redevelopment and the newest shopping plaza has one Target and three Starbucks outlets.
But although gentrification has expanded the city's tax base and weeded out blight, it has had an unintended effect on Atlanta, long a lure to African-Americans and a symbol of black success. For the first time since the 1920's, the black share of the city's population is declining and the white percentage is on the rise.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
new urbanism ping
Went to a convention there about 15 years ago. Remember being locked into Peachtree Center because the downtown streets were a junky and homeless panhandler convention after sundown. During the day we walked down the streets and tried to avoid the discarded hypos which littered the sidewalk.
Once you took the subway out of central Atlanta, people were very nice. Not nice enough though, that I would ever go back.
If you spend your early mornings and evenings setting in traffic on I-75 or I-85 a home in town becomes attractive. The cost of a small house in Atlanta has skyrocketed! It will be interesting when the numbers keep building and Atlanta becomes a part of the state of Georgia again.
It's really just a re-balancing. The city had become too much all one color for it's on good. Atlanta is naturally a diverse city and the people moving back into the city want diversity.
I like your tag line.
Thanks for the ping.
This article sounds so racist to me.
Well... which way do they want it?
Decades ago they complained about "white flight" as the yuppies (actually, the middle class professionals... white, black and otherwise) moved to the suburbs and "abandoned" the inner city.
Now the middle class moves back into the city and they call it "gentrification" as if it is some kind of bad thing.
Which is it?
Agreed. I was skeptical of Atlanta's future as anything but a warmer New Jersey, with the way they'd been developing, but they seem to be focusing growth on all aspects of the metro area, not just the outer limits. If the city center grows up as the rest of the city grows out, they could be well on their way to becoming the world-class city they've been promising the world to become for 30 years.
The problem is correlating race as simply a marker for poverty or high incomes. They're making the link explicit in this article. Not living in Atlanta, I don't know what to make of it.
Atlanta has one of the largest black middle classes in the country, are they not part of this trend?
In other words, things are going great in Atlanta, and metro Atlanta is becoming more evenly integrated, yet the NY Slimes is looking for the downside. Maybe there is no downside (except too much traffic and development).
Hell no! They are moving into suburban areas of Atlanta, PARTICULARLY if they have school age kids!
In their defense, most officials quoted in the story sound positive about the change in the city. They don't know what it will mean for the city's politics in the future, but only a few people see it as a bad thing.
And those people are often negatively affected by gentrification, as their landlords boot them out of their homes and sell to Yuppies.
Yeah, that'll work . . . NOT!
If the area is desirable enough that the natural trend is toward gentrification, it will work with some set-asides. You have to be on the right side of the tipping point and with traffic being what it is that is no longer such a challenge.
Neglect it and let it decay, it's "blight," which is bad for poor people. Rebuild and clean it up, it's "gentrification," which is bad for poor people.
The city had become too much all one color for it's on good. Atlanta is naturally a diverse city and the people moving back into the city want diversity.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I very much doubt that anyone moving into Atlanta is ACTUALLY SEEKING "diversity"!
There isn't enough money in the world to pay me to live
down town in Atlanta, and I should know, I lived downtown
for over 15 years.
Young yuppies think they can live untouched in gated communities..........guess again.
After our hood was condo'd and gentrified, there was a rash of car break ins, oh the outcry! What did they expect when
you leave a laptop or ipod on the seat of your suv?
Never again, I live in the country and try to avoid going
in town for ANY reason.
Oh, and Bill, you WERE guilty, but anyone who knew intown
knew that.
One thing I don't miss is all the little yapping Chihuahuas and miniature poodles favored by the in town gay guys.
He'll walk. I wouldn't have believed it, but he'll walk.
Probably get 30 days probation and an hour or two of community service.
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