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Everyone on here doesn't realize the impact that the HOPE VI program has had on the city's population. For those of you unfamiliar, HOPE VI was a HUD program that provided grants to housing authorities across the nation to redevelop public housing projects - many of which had been plagued by blight, crime, and poor living conditions of decades - into mixed income communities. The redevelopment of Techwood Homes into the Olympic Village for the 1996 Summer Games, and then into Centennial Place, was one of the first HOPE VI projects in the country and received rave reviews from the Clinton administration. Encouraged by all of the acclaim generated from both government and stakeholders in the private sector, the Atlanta Housing Authority aggressively pursued similar plans for the rest of their communities.
Despite the program's best intentions, a lot of the original residents in many of these communities were not offered the chance to return after they had been redeveloped. Yes - there were bad apples that made life hard for everybody, but please remember that the majority of these folks were low-income families that relied on the benefits of being in close proximity to the metro area's employment centers.
Additionally many of the city's new residents were young professionals - many of whom were either single or married with no children - that averaged smaller houshold sizes than many of the more established residents.
The housing authority made a lot of progress in closing down a lot of their communties, but the real estate market crash hit before many of these communities could be rebuilt; thus leaving large tracts of vacant land in the middle of the city.
It is important to recognize that these public housing communities were not small by any means, but rather significantly large as exemplified by the fact that they were the home for tens of thousands of city residents all together. Just to give you an idea of the number of public housing communities that have been redeveloped since 2000, here are some of them off the top of my head:
Bowen Homes
Bankhead Courts
Perry Homes
Capitol Homes
Grady Homes
McDaniel-Glenn
Carver Homes
Thomasville Heights
Now mind you, there have also been many privately-owned low-income apartment communities that have also been shuttered with plans for redevelopent. Also, we shouldn't forget the fact that many residents in Vine City were forced to relocate after the flooding that occurred there several years ago.
So yes - there has definitely been a rapid influx of new residents in the city; I mean there would have to be for the city to still record a positive net gain in population despite all of these residents relocating. However we shouldn't forget the fact that the makeup of Atlanta in 2000 has been drastically altered into the Atlanta of today. Even more, we should also make sure that local and state governments take a more proactive stance in creating more opportunities for the development of workforce/affordable housing, as well as improving transit connections to the suburbs.
I also forgot to mention the demolition of University Homes near the AUC, as well as the thousands of apartment units in the Lindbergh Center area that housed many immigrants from Latin America. Again, the housing market collapsed before most of the new units could be constructed and occupied - resulting in a large net population loss just for that area (yes there are new apartments near the MARTA station, but the average household size of those new units are more than likely substantially lower).
Originally Posted by Newsboy What?! Sandy Springs was NEVER "part" of the city of Atlanta. There was "no split," Ignorance is bliss isn't it DTL? Go stick your head back in the sand .... you clearly haven't a clue about this stuff.
What's with the attitude? I was wrong. Sue me. I had thought that Sandy Springs was actually a part of Atlanta. There was such an uproar when they became incorporated and I recalled it as occuring within the city of Atlanta when it was within the Fulton County govt.
DTL, you have just run into a very important distinction. First, there is Real World Wrong, and that can certainly have dire consequences, including death, imprisonment, or marriage to someone who hates your guts.
However, you have committed the far more serious offense of Internet Wrong. There is no known cure for this other than repeated, groveling, abject apologies. People have even been known to go away and come back under a different username. It is a heavy cross to bear.
Everyone on here doesn't realize the impact that the HOPE VI program has had on the city's population. For those of you unfamiliar, HOPE VI was a HUD program that provided grants to housing authorities across the nation to redevelop public housing projects - many of which had been plagued by blight, crime, and poor living conditions of decades - into mixed income communities. The redevelopment of Techwood Homes into the Olympic Village for the 1996 Summer Games, and then into Centennial Place, was one of the first HOPE VI projects in the country and received rave reviews from the Clinton administration. Encouraged by all of the acclaim generated from both government and stakeholders in the private sector, the Atlanta Housing Authority aggressively pursued similar plans for the rest of their communities.
Despite the program's best intentions, a lot of the original residents in many of these communities were not offered the chance to return after they had been redeveloped. Yes - there were bad apples that made life hard for everybody, but please remember that the majority of these folks were low-income families that relied on the benefits of being in close proximity to the metro area's employment centers.
Additionally many of the city's new residents were young professionals - many of whom were either single or married with no children - that averaged smaller houshold sizes than many of the more established residents.
The housing authority made a lot of progress in closing down a lot of their communties, but the real estate market crash hit before many of these communities could be rebuilt; thus leaving large tracts of vacant land in the middle of the city.
It is important to recognize that these public housing communities were not small by any means, but rather significantly large as exemplified by the fact that they were the home for tens of thousands of city residents all together. Just to give you an idea of the number of public housing communities that have been redeveloped since 2000, here are some of them off the top of my head:
Bowen Homes
Bankhead Courts
Perry Homes
Capitol Homes
Grady Homes
McDaniel-Glenn
Carver Homes
Thomasville Heights
Now mind you, there have also been many privately-owned low-income apartment communities that have also been shuttered with plans for redevelopent. Also, we shouldn't forget the fact that many residents in Vine City were forced to relocate after the flooding that occurred there several years ago.
So yes - there has definitely been a rapid influx of new residents in the city; I mean there would have to be for the city to still record a positive net gain in population despite all of these residents relocating. However we shouldn't forget the fact that the makeup of Atlanta in 2000 has been drastically altered into the Atlanta of today. Even more, we should also make sure that local and state governments take a more proactive stance in creating more opportunities for the development of workforce/affordable housing, as well as improving transit connections to the suburbs.
I'm suspecting that this may be a big factor behind the actual population figure as well. We should also remember that newer infill projects aren't likely to be 100% occupied (some fall far short of that) and will be occupied mainly be singles and childless couples.
DTL, you have just run into a very important distinction. First, there is Real World Wrong, and that can certainly have dire consequences, including death, imprisonment, or marriage to someone who hates your guts.
However, you have committed the far more serious offense of Internet Wrong. There is no known cure for this other than repeated, groveling, abject apologies. People have even been known to go away and come back under a different username. It is a heavy cross to bear.
Yeah, I forgot about how serious people take this crap. The Internet is The Most Serious of Businesses. People who win The Internet are the equivalent of champion Olympians of Ancient Greece.
Yeah, I forgot about how serious people take this crap. The Internet is The Most Serious of Businesses. People who win The Internet are the equivalent of champion Olympians of Ancient Greece.
So true.
I visit the Atlanta forums every now and then for a good chuckle, as no other City-Data forum is full of so much dysfunction, hyperbole and drama as this one. Usually it's to read with bemusement the newest "hype" from the usual suspects boasting about the latest failed strip mall (Streets of Buckhead) or defending metro Atlanta's appalling lack of density (our roads were once Indian Trails) or dissecting Atlantic Station's low brow shopping mall fashion sense (it's a black thing you wouldn't understand). If there's a consistent theme here, it's that there's always an excuse to explain away the disconnect.
Thanks to a rep point I received alerting me to this thread, I'm not surprised to read post after post filled with abject horror and shame over the Census results. Yes, it's official: metro Atlanta is a full 1 million people less than what a few loudmouths (and you know who you are) love to stretch the population figures to be. Whatever shall we do???
But nothing can top the select few who feel a full blown U.S. Census Bureau conspiracy is behind all this. Really? Is it really that serious?
Well maybe it is. Three years into the Great Recession and Atlanta's economy is still sagging with its pants on the ground (kind of apropos, isn't that?). Honestly, with the overabundance of cheap McMansion real estate, the rising price of oil and the crackerjack, Bible-thumping political climate in Georgia, I don't think Atlanta is EVER going to recover.
I also forgot to mention the demolition of University Homes near the AUC, as well as the thousands of apartment units in the Lindbergh Center area that housed many immigrants from Latin America. Again, the housing market collapsed before most of the new units could be constructed and occupied - resulting in a large net population loss just for that area (yes there are new apartments near the MARTA station, but the average household size of those new units are more than likely substantially lower).
You make some extremely good points.
Still, I'd like to see the numbers in detail. Bowen Homes, for example, had about 900 residents. Bankhead Courts had 386 units and about the same number of residents. So even if all those residents were displaced, you're still not looking at a massive population loss. In fact, while some were displaced, many were relocated to new projects within the city.
As I understand it, the number of residents served by the Atlanta Housing Authority has continued to go up fairly steadily, despite the closing and/or redevelopment of the older projects. My recollection is that they now have over 50,000 residents.
However, transitioning to an online system won't solve every problem and could inadvertently make them much worse. This is why they have done it. If they do it they will do it slowly and very cautiously. The nice thing about the mailed out forms and the door-to-door workers is in both cases the research collection is done at the residence. It is much harder for certain people or groups to commit fraud in the measurement.
I agree with you as far as filling out the final forms is concerned, but I at least think that you should be able to request a census form online if you somehow did not make their master list. They can check for duplicates and fraud on the backend after you submit the paper forms. However, I was totally unable to get the Census Bureau to mail me any forms even with quite a bit of frustrating effort. Rather than an online form, they had an inaccurate voice recognition system to incorrectly record your address.
Quote:
Also, before people go crazy yelling incompetence...remember they are doing a very complex thing. It isn't simple. They are trying to count every single person in every single residence throughout the country and do it in a way the prevents fraud and false counts.
Well, okay, I agree with this too. But that is not the story they told. Their story is that the census is only painful and expensive because people (i.e., me) would not take 5 minute to fill out a form. I was fine with providing the information, but it took nothing short of a few frustrating hours over several phone calls to actually provide it, not 5 minutes.
Quote:
Just curious... was the problem complex wide or just as a few apartments or just yours? and where was it?
I'm not sure. This was in upstate NY (moving to ATL next week).
Anyway, I acknowledge that they have a tough job, but i was pretty annoyed with the way they handled it. The final time that I called in to provide my information (the previous times went to an automated recording or a voice recognition system that was totally unable to recognize my voice), the agent still acted like I had ignored their previous requests and just made more work for them. I told him that I had received exactly nothing from the Census Bureau, even after requesting it, but he didn't quite believe it.
In 2020, I will fill out the form and send it in if they manage to get it to me. If they don't manage to do so, then I will just ignore the census and move on about my business.
I visit the Atlanta forums every now and then for a good chuckle, as no other City-Data forum is full of so much dysfunction, hyperbole and drama as this one. Usually it's to read with bemusement the newest "hype" from the usual suspects boasting about the latest failed strip mall (Streets of Buckhead) or defending metro Atlanta's appalling lack of density (our roads were once Indian Trails) or dissecting Atlantic Station's low brow shopping mall fashion sense (it's a black thing you wouldn't understand). If there's a consistent theme here, it's that there's always an excuse to explain away the disconnect.
Thanks to a rep point I received alerting me to this thread, I'm not surprised to read post after post filled with abject horror and shame over the Census results. Yes, it's official: metro Atlanta is a full 1 million people less than what a few loudmouths (and you know who you are) love to stretch the population figures to be. Whatever shall we do???
But nothing can top the select few who feel a full blown U.S. Census Bureau conspiracy is behind all this. Really? Is it really that serious?
Well maybe it is. Three years into the Great Recession and Atlanta's economy is still sagging with its pants on the ground (kind of apropos, isn't that?). Honestly, with the overabundance of cheap McMansion real estate, the rising price of oil and the crackerjack, Bible-thumping political climate in Georgia, I don't think Atlanta is EVER going to recover.
I am a Georgia native, lived in metro Atlanta until 2003. I am now in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. I visit the two sites more than any other on here as they are the two cities where I have connections and visit the most.
With that piece of background info, allow me to hand you a bit of reality. The Atlanta thread has its contributors who are informed and concerned about their city and has those that get on here and blab for the sake of blabbing. Same as Dallas. Same as other cities, I am sure, just not as connected to them so don't visit them.
As far as drama and dysfunction, I find your post here more fitting of the description than any in the thread.
I am a Georgia native, lived in metro Atlanta until 2003. I am now in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. I visit the two sites more than any other on here as they are the two cities where I have connections and visit the most.
With that piece of background info, allow me to hand you a bit of reality. The Atlanta thread has its contributors who are informed and concerned about their city and has those that get on here and blab for the sake of blabbing. Same as Dallas. Same as other cities, I am sure, just not as connected to them so don't visit them.
As far as drama and dysfunction, I find your post here more fitting of the description than any in the thread.
Looking at his history under his profile, this guy's whole purpose for posting on City-Data is to bash Atlanta. He only has 35 post in his location of DC but over 100 post in ATL.
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