The Persistence of Failed History in Urban Atlanta: “White Infill” and "Gentrification" as the New “White Flight?"

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by arjay57

How do all these rich white dudes moving into places like Ormewood, East Atlanta and Capitol View justify themselves?

I know people that moved into all of these neighborhoods. They are not rich by any means, although they may aspire to be.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

I know Atlanta is better than many other cities in this regard and I too hope this stays in place. But the city has always been more expensive than the burbs.

When we were first married and returning to ATL with the first one on the way (early 90s) I really wanted to be in the city. The spouse wasn't as keen and would only be happy in Buckhead. We were NO WHERE near being able to afford Buckhead at the time. We visited some friends in Ormewood and she would have none of that even tho I thought it would be exciting.

A few years later when it was time to upgrade, we got a huge 4/2 ranch on a full finished basement with a mother-in law suite (made it a 5/3 actually) that we rented out for over half our mortgagte... for $50k less than what another friend paid for a 2/1 cottage near Piedmont Hospital. When our quiver was full (4 kids) there just wasn't an option in the city. By that time we were both working in Cobb, so no real need.

All that to say "I hear ya...."

[Atlwarrior]

Per Wikipedia " Between 2000 and 2010, the proportion of whites in the city's population grew faster than that of any other U.S. city. In that decade, Atlanta's white population grew from 31% to 38% of the city’s population, an absolute increase of 22,753 people, more than triple the increase that occurred between 1990 and 2000."

[arjay57]

I posted this in the Mims park thread but will mention it here because it makes some important points about gentrification.

There's another approach to this issue:

The paralyzing thinking goes like this: We want to improve lower-income neighborhoods to make them better places for the people who live there now but anything we do to make them better places will inevitably make people with more money want to live there and this will inevitably drive up rents and prices and displace the current residents, harming the people we set out to help (or, in many cases, harming the very people responsible for making the neighborhood better through years of hard work) and rewarding people who drop in at the last minute to displace them.

Once you recognize this dynamic, it is very hard to talk yourself into wholeheartedly backing any kind of action. It seems wrong to leave distressed communities to rot but it also seems wrong to turn them around. Sadly, the most common response is to try to find strategies that improve things, but not too much. We feel okay about working toward improvement as long as we don’t really expect to succeed.

Luckily, this paradox is built on a total misunderstanding of how neighborhood change actually happens.

More... It’s Not Either/Or: Neighborhood Improvement Can Prevent Gentrification

[jeoff]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I posted this in the Mims park thread but will mention it here because it makes some important points about gentrification.

There's another approach to this issue:

...I don't really understand how the things cited in the article will lead to improvements without gentrification.

[aselvarial]

My husband and I are actually looking to move intown. We have a toddler and currently live in outer suburbia hell, but it is giving me hives. His commute to work is over an hour each way, and when you already do 12 hour days, that's a big deal. We have many reasons. We hate yard work. No mass transit. Large houses (typical in the burbs) mean more to clean (or feel compelled to fill). Plus, most houses in burbs are SOOOOOOO BLAH!!! It's like vanilla on steroids. Then there are the neighbors who proceed to ignore you when they learn you don't hunt and only vaguely know when football season is (welcome to redneck hell). The nearest store is minimum of 5 miles away. EVERYWHERE is a drive. There is NO walking anywhere. And the public school systems suck badly enough everywhere that determining whether to send him to this bad school in the city, or that slightly less horrific school in the burbs, is not really an issue. Fortunately, we live in the wonderful age of technology and online schooling IS an option. Even for the young.

[GeorgiaLakeSearch]

Originally Posted by aselvarial

My husband and I are actually looking to move intown. We have a toddler and currently live in outer suburbia hell, but it is giving me hives. His commute to work is over an hour each way, and when you already do 12 hour days, that's a big deal. We have many reasons. We hate yard work. No mass transit. Large houses (typical in the burbs) mean more to clean (or feel compelled to fill). Plus, most houses in burbs are SOOOOOOO BLAH!!! It's like vanilla on steroids. Then there are the neighbors who proceed to ignore you when they learn you don't hunt and only vaguely know when football season is (welcome to redneck hell). The nearest store is minimum of 5 miles away. EVERYWHERE is a drive. There is NO walking anywhere. And the public school systems suck badly enough everywhere that determining whether to send him to this bad school in the city, or that slightly less horrific school in the burbs, is not really an issue. Fortunately, we live in the wonderful age of technology and online schooling IS an option. Even for the young.

What area do you live?

[cqholt]

Grant Park and Castleberry Hill are very distinctive on this map with the mixture of dots. Funny how there is corridor of Hispanics going up along 85 north.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaLakeSearch

What area do you live?

Seriously, suburbs have the best public schools in general in Atlanta. Some bad ones sure but the best are still there. I have every store I need within 3 miles in 3 directions. Traffic isn't that bad. Non existent after 9 pm. I don't hunt and no one has ostracized me. Most of the kids I went to school with either moved here from the north or had parents that did. I was one of the few to have a parent born in the Atlanta area. Not all houses are huge. There are plenty you can find that are single level ranch style built before the 90s.

I can understand why some don't want to live suburbs and vice versa. There's a reason we all have choices. But that sounds like a bad experience typical of just one area, not the whole.

[travelinFool]

I wonder has anyone performed a study showing the percentage of middle class blacks moving into those intown areas. My group of friends have all within the last 10 years moved in from the burbs to the city, however, few of us have kids.
In addition, in areas like Midway Woods, there was a recent attempt of annexation into the City of Decatur and that is because there has been an increase in families with kids or those that moved within the last 5 years had kids. Then there was the push for the Druid Hills Charter Cluster that didn't pass. I'm for charter schools, but this one had several flaws. I'm sure this is playing out in other neighborhoods as well where the neighborhoods are changing (i hate the word gentrifying, but that is a whole 'nother issue).
The annexation attempt caused a riff between the elderly. those with adult children and some singles, that didn't want to see their taxes increase.
It's interesting to watch these developments and the interaction between the "dog walkers" and the old timers. In some areas of DeKalb there is still a moderate population of older white AND blacks which is much more rare than other parts of intown Atlanta that are still mostly black.