Luxury housing dominates in Atlanta, the most unequal US city (Decatur: 2014, lofts)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

No, the article mentions Deed Restrictions as the developer-voluntary item it is. It also talks about the other restrictions such as buffer ordinances, city lot size rules, and city limits on density, all stereotypical barriers to more efficient development.

You can build 4 townhouses on that lot. You aren't restricted to a single family home. That is totally different than typical zoning.

Other than the new buffer ordinances, there isn't control of density. Its not really a control of density, it is a graduated setback. And the buffer ordinance only applies to 75 feet or higher and has lots of exceptions-for example, properties on major arterials and in "major activity centers" (downtown and at least 7 other business districts). In other words, the buffer doesn't apply to where any reasonable developer would put high rises.

[Atlanta Scientist]

I like where I live a lot but the rent keeps going up and up and up. My apartment complex was sold to another management company and now the apartments have become luxury apartments. Rent increased by about 11.7% monthly which is more than the raise I will get. Not sure what can be done other than buying but that is gonna take sometime.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by Columbia Scientist

I like where I live a lot but the rent keeps going up and up and up. My apartment complex was sold to another management company and now the apartments have become luxury apartments. Rent increased by about 11.7% monthly which is more than the raise I will get. Not sure what can be done other than buying but that is gonna take sometime.

What can be done is to encourage enough development to meet the growing & pent up demand that is driving up prices by removing many barriers to development, and by actively incentivizing new development around city infrastructure like parks and fixed-guideway transit.

[Iconographer]

I'm sorry, but I'm still trying to get my head around Atlanta being labeled "The Most Unequal US City" when San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles are in the running.

[Atlanta Scientist]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

I'm sorry, but I'm still trying to get my head around Atlanta being labeled "The Most Unequal US City" when San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, Miami and Los Angeles are in the running.

I guess it is a sum of many factors where Atlanta is second to Miami in the wealth gap but also on top with Houston in the number of luxury rentals. Atlanta becomes even more unequal with the data that shows its citizens are the least likely to rise out of poverty. Furthermore, Atlanta's lackluster transit system leads to an exacerbation of the de facto segregation of the Atlanta area.

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by Columbia Scientist

I guess it is a sum of many factors where Atlanta is second to Miami in the wealth gap but also on top with Houston in the number of luxury rentals. Atlanta becomes even more unequal with the data that shows its citizens are the least likely to rise out of poverty. Furthermore, Atlanta's lackluster transit system leads to an exacerbation of the de facto segregation of the Atlanta area.

Sources? I need a laugh today.

[Atlanta Scientist]

Originally Posted by LovinDecatur

Sources? I need a laugh today.

The links in the article that this thread is based on.

[brown_dog_us]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

Yes, yes they are, and there is, thankfully, mobilization to fix it through the YIMBY groups. The bay area has a massive housing shortage and it's driving up prices to ridiculous levels. That means that fewer and fewer people of an ever shrinking range of incomes can afford to live there. That means that more and more people must commute in on already clogged roads and strained transit systems.


That represents a huge opportunity cost of not only lost housing revenue, but lost business, lost time, and wasted energy.

Like I said, it's tough on people with limited incomes who haven't secured permanent affordable housing, but that doesn't indicate the city as a whole is suffering. You are looking at it from a planners perspective, but for most of the people in the bay area it's working because of the great jobs and the barriers to entry plus the wealth created by the rising real estate values.

btw, are you going to the 2017 YIMBY conference in Oakland?

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by Columbia Scientist

The links in the article that this thread is based on.

Which to me seems to have been written by someone with blinders on as to what's happening in the rest of the country. Total equivocation.
My daughter in San Jose (age 28) has a six figure income and lives like someone that makes a third of that here. Her network of friends living in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle (her former home) all have the same complaint. So, sorry, it's hard for me to take the article or the thread seriously; if this is a problem here, it's a problem on steroids in many other American cities.
And it's not to dismiss the problem; I do see it as an issue, just like you do. But hyperbolic rhetoric won't solve it.

[arjay57]

There was a good show on TV the other day where the head of the Beltline talked about affordable housing.

It starts at about the 6:19 mark.

Executive Profiles Week of July 9 | 11alive.com