Is Atlanta segregated? (living in, vs., warehouse)

[cqholt]

I know the public housing project experiment was a failure, but atleast all your problems were isolated in 1 area and if you lived 15-20 miles away you lived in peace, didnt have to bother with drug dealers in your neighborhood, people shooting guns off in the air.

It is unfair to quarantine people together based on their income. This is America, isn't it? Where everyone has the right to a quality education, or is that only for middle and above incomes?

It wouldn't be politically correct to admit this so. And Fox was found to be much less biased than MSNBC by pew.

Which is why I get my news from The Onion.

[GeorgiaLakeSearch]

Originally Posted by cqholt

It is unfair to quarantine people together based on their income. This is America, isn't it? Where everyone has the right to a quality education, or is that only for middle and above incomes?

Which is why I get my news from The Onion.

Quarantine... I know it is so unfair to make similar people live together. If they are not paying they don't have a say. You can live where you want when you can afford it.

[Freeminds]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaLakeSearch

Quarantine... I know it is so unfair to make similar people live together. If they are not paying they don't have a say. can live where you want when you can afford it.

This.

That fact applies to people who pay their own rent too.

[GucciDiva]

That Miami map is wrong.....add more orange lol

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaLakeSearch

Quarantine... I know it is so unfair to make similar people live together. If they are not paying they don't have a say. You can live where you want when you can afford it.

On the voucher system, they do have say at no extra cost. The only thing that doesn't change is there ability to rent anything other than the absolute cheapest places.

The problem with the old projects mentality -and- oh well if you can't afford it you must live exactly in this one spot....

It does nothing to fix long-term problems. It teaches bad social behaviors. It isn't necessarily placing people near the proper low-wage jobs to get them started.

By allowing them to spread out, they can find places closer to jobs, which are scattered throughout town. They won't learn bad social behaviors from living in a high-density warehouse of poor people.

Our old system was set-up a long time ago when we didn't have many suburbs to start with and most jobs were actually located near downtown. They originally made the projects thinking they were placing people near opportunity, but over time where that opportunity was changed.

The other sides to this. It became poison for the schools of intown neighborhoods, rather than lightly spreading out the problem everywhere. There were real neighborhoods and real middle class houses around these projects in the past. They lost value and the social fabric collapsed. It wasn't fair to those people. It places people near people that are more successful, which over time does help teach people how to behave, act, etc...

[Freeminds]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

On the voucher system, they do have say at no extra cost. The only thing that doesn't change is there ability to rent anything other than the absolute cheapest places.

The problem with the old projects mentality -and- oh well if you can't afford it you must live exactly in this one spot....

It does nothing to fix long-term problems. It teaches bad social behaviors. It isn't necessarily placing people near the proper low-wage jobs to get them started.

By allowing them to spread out, they can find places closer to jobs, which are scattered throughout town. They won't learn bad social behaviors from living in a high-density warehouse of poor people.

Our old system was set-up a long time ago when we didn't have many suburbs to start with and most jobs were actually located near downtown. They originally made the projects thinking they were placing people near opportunity, but over time where that opportunity was changed.

The other sides to this. It became poison for the schools of intown neighborhoods, rather than lightly spreading out the problem everywhere. There were real neighborhoods and real middle class houses around these projects in the past. They lost value and the social fabric collapsed. It wasn't fair to those people. It places people near people that are more successful, which over time does help teach people how to behave, act, etc...

People learn how to act act home. If parents aren't teaching then it doesn't matter. The grown folk are already a lost cause so they can't teach right. The only thing you can do is keep them from people who do act right or take them from bad parents.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by Freeminds

People learn how to act act home. If parents aren't teaching then it doesn't matter. The grown folk are already a lost cause so they can't teach right. The only thing you can do is keep them from people who do act right or take them from bad parents.

no, they learn to act from any atmosphere they are placed.

That includes everything: in the home, from parents, from friends, from neighbors, classmates, etc...

When you put all of the poorest people on top of each other they have to interact with their neighbors bad behavior too.

It could even be argued you have to behave in bad ways sometimes just to survive the negative pressures around you.

Some things we can't control; some things we can.

I'd much rather the kids go to a mixed-income school and neighbors have more mixed-income (even if it is only mixed on a low-income, low-middle income scale... people can see how their neighbors who do have stable jobs act, behave, and on occasion seek advice via day-to-day social interactions)

It is better for a kid to live in an area where they have more social pressure to stay in school, because other classmates would never consider dropping out.

[afonega1]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

^ What you write... ^

What I read.... > "Atlanta is very segregated. Sure some can name some areas where black, whites, hispanics, and asians live together, like the parts of the region where most people live."

You make some good observations, but I also think your underplaying just how many people live in many of these areas.

I think what has happened is you have a good part of town and a bad part of town and many areas in between.

Historically one group has been stuck in the bad part of town. No one wants to move from the good part to the bad part, but people do want to move up and more people than before have access or ways to do that.
Many are moving around within the parts.

The historic black areas, with some exceptions, are still largely places most people don't want to be. However, I think it is incorrect that in the other way around. There is a relatively healthy mix in the other parts and people aren't necessarily fleeing. They are staying around the areas where they can get to their jobs.

The other exception to this is the really high end areas are predominately controlled by the wealthiest group that has had control of that wealth for a long time. The single family home neighborhoods of the multi-million dollar homes are going to be mostly white.

That is why I posted that map with the diversity index.

Diversity is lower in most of Buckhead, South Dekalb, and West Atlanta.

It is luke warm in the more expensive middle class areas, like East Cobb, Milton Virginia Highland, Morningside, Druid Hills.

It is also luke warm or non-existent on the exurban fringe further from a job base.

It is really high in transitional areas and areas with mixed housing types, including areas on the good side of town. It is also really high in areas that are mostly middle class.


I agree and disagree with Ericson's earlier comments about Atlanta being in transition and things will settle in different patterns over time.

I think that is partly true, but I alot of research is showing we are separated by economic class more than ever before and it is the middle part that is ending up so diverse. I think for many areas diversity to some extent is here to stay, because people have greater ability to move around than they did before. The various social groups aren't separated as much economically, particularly in the lower-middle and middle classes.


I also do believe the housing voucher program, while the Olympics was a catalyst, wasn't just haphazardly done. We still continued destroying housing projects after the Olympics. I think there was a realization that many families were perpetually in projects from generation to generation and they were continually learning bad social habits from each other, rather than better social habits from others around them.

To an extent... I think it was also a retaliation of the small (spatially) city of Atlanta not being able to carry all of the social services burden for the region, while suburban areas could ignore it and have lower taxes. Atlanta for decades couldn't keep up with infrastructure needs like roads, sidewalks, and water/sewer.... and they had a higher tax rate. Part of that problem is they were left behind paying for social programs created by previous generations and the rest of the region didn't help out, so the city of Atlanta did the last thing they could (and ironically the same thing conservative suburbanites whined about for years; paying so much tax money into those social programs). I'm not sure many people new to town in the last 1-2 decades really realize that Atlanta's (proper) infrastructure condition, as bad as it is, is actually getting better than it was before... not worse.

To me this is what Atlantagreg's response is referring to.

I think ultimately we are doing the right thing, but it will take time for some bad social habits to die away and people to learn from each other better. In a sense... I feel like we are living with the problems caused by the short-sightedness of generations before us.

Co-sign everything you just stated.It just goes to show how we in our communities cannot just keep moving away and ignoring these social problems that exist.There is too much of this "me" and "them" mentality.You cannot live in a bubble.No man is an island.Problems of some will eventually affect us all.

[CountryFisher]

Why is segregation bad? It's just natural human instincts. I don't get why people on this forum care so much about "diversity".

[afonega1]

Originally Posted by CountryFisher

Why is segregation bad? It's just natural human instincts. I don't get why people on this forum care so much about "diversity".

I guess when its rooted in bad intentions and unfair practices then yes its a bad thing.Racism and Segregation in this country have a long history.Although those two are not mutual bedfellows.The perception is that its about how one group feels superior than the other rather than its just a simple comfort issue.
Any place in the South will be frowned upon even though its an established fact that Southern cities are actually LESS segregated than their Northern counterparts.