The ‘Beginning of the end’ for the Atlanta Way? Not so fast

The city of Atlanta is well known for its corporate-led white–Black urban regime and the ‘Atlanta Way,’ an approach that neglects the city’s low-income residents. Under Mayor Andre Dickens, the city made some changes in affordable housing policy, including standing up a new social housing developer and implementing a housing trust fund. National media and think tanks have praised the Dickens Administration for these efforts. Because affordable housing is a key component of equitable urban policy and planning, do such efforts signal a ‘beginning of the end’ of the Atlanta Way? Unfortunately, I find that the answer is no. I argue that these somewhat stronger affordable housing efforts do not constitute any sort of paradigm shift. The city has yet to address the undertaxation of commercial real estate, leaving it unable to capture a sufficient share of the growth in land values for more equitable development, and it has failed to devote sufficient resources towards deeply affordable housing for the lowest-income Atlantans. Moreover, the city derailed a referendum on its Cop City project, a major investment in policing favored by corporate interests. In the end, the Atlanta Way still seems to be very much alive.