Why Metro Atlanta Is the Poster Child for the US Housing Crisis
In his new book, Red Hot City: Housing, Race and Exclusion in 21st-Century Atlanta, urban studies professor Dan Immergluck reveals how policy decisions have led to gentrification and a lack of affordable homes in Georgia’s capital.
Housing in front of the Atlanta skyline.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/BloombergLast year, the Federal Reserve declared that not one of the 13 counties that make up metro Atlanta qualified as an affordable housing market. In many places, monthly housing costs consume more than 40% of homeowners’ incomes, well beyond the 30% threshold that the Federal Reserve uses to monitor market affordability.
Accelerating housing prices have been the narrative for virtually every major US metro lately, but Atlanta is somewhat “paradigmatic” of the trend, according to Georgia State University urban studies professor Dan Immergluck. Since arriving in Atlanta in 2005, Immergluck has been tracking and documenting the direction of metro Atlanta’s housing conditions, focusing on segregation and gentrification patterns.