gentrification

increased concentrations of minorities and the poor. A combination of recent targeted policyinitiatives, redevelopment activities undertaken for the 1996 Olympics, and increasing concern aboutmetropolitan sprawl have successfully attracted some new jobs and housing back into the centercity. When combined with the continuing suburban and ex-urban boom, some Atlantaneighborhoods are experiencing gentrification pressures today. The resulting level of gentrificationhas varied by neighborhood, ranging from widespread gentrification in Inman Park to significantgentrification pressures in Kirkwood, to very controlled revitalization without displacement in theMartin Luther King Historic District.1. Development Trends: Need for Core Development in Booming RegionAtlanta is the 13 th largest metropolitan area in the nation, with the 36 th largest city in thecountry at its center. Atlanta’s large and robust suburban and ex-urban communities are growing ata very fast pace while the city center declines or remains stable. 77 Like many other cities, beginningin the 1950s Atlanta’s inhabitants increasingly became minorities and the poor. 78 Atlanta’s poorpopulation is extremely concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods; in 1990, nearly 85 percent ofthe city of Atlanta’s poor lived in high poverty neighborhoods.Income trends and job growth also reflect the same pattern of suburban strength and city stagnation.Incomes. Median household income in the Atlanta region increased by nearly 20 percent inreal terms between 1969 and 1989, but dropped by nearly 25 percent in the city. Reflecting the outmigrationof middle class African Americans, the median income of central city Blacks declined by 26percent during those 20 years, while incomes of African Americans in the suburbs increased by 42.6percent. 79Job Growth. After suffering a loss of nearly 18,000 jobs between 1989 and 1992, 80 thecentral city gained 25,000 jobs during the economic boom of the mid-‘90s (a ten percent rise). Jobsgrew at twice that rate for the entire region, however. 81 Job creation is centered in the downtown,mid-town, Buckhead and airport areas, with the vast majority of new job growth occurring in thenorthern suburbs and airport areas. The job growth has not meant a significant change for manyinner city African Americans, as two Georgia Tech researchers found: “…despite the incredible77 The City’s population declined by 14 percent between 1970 and 1999, to 427,500 people. The BrookingsInstitution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Moving Beyond Sprawl: The Challenge for MetropolitanAtlanta. Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2000, p.9. Meanwhile, the region grew at a fast clip, by about150 percent during the same period to nearly 3 million in 1994. (Walker, p. 3 and iii) Atlanta’s growing northside gained more than 650,000 residents during the last decade. (Brookings, Atlanta, P. 8)78 Nearly 70 percent of the City’s population was non-white in 1990, an increase from just over 50 percent in1970. (Walker, p. 5) While the poverty rate for the Atlanta region is a relatively low ten percent, the City ranksfifth nationally among cities with a population over 200,000, with a poverty rate of 27.3 percent. (Walker, p. iii)79 Walker, p. 8 and Table 6.80 Smith, William J., Trends in Atlanta’s Employment Profile. Atlanta: Research Atlanta, Inc., 1997, p. 3.81 The city’s growth was just one-tenth of the of the region’s additional 225,000 jobs during that same four-yearperiod. (Brennan, John and Edward W. Hill, Where Are the Jobs?: Cities, Suburbs, and the Competition forEmployment. Washington: The Brookings Institution Survey Series, Nov. 1999, Table 2.)50