How Atlanta Built 7,000 Housing Units in 3 Years

New research from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Data-Smart City Solutions project analyzed how the city of Atlanta uses a neighborhood-based approach and data to improve its housing services and preserve affordable housing in the city.

As Jabari Simama explains in a piece for Governing, “Harvard identified four key components of Atlanta’s approach: collaboration across sectors, identifying developable properties, strengthening governance and planning for the future.”

According to the Atlanta mayor’s chief policy officer, Courtney English, the city’s approach to housing focuses on “neighborhood health” in some of the city’s most distressed neighborhoods. A group called the Affordable Housing Strike Force, which includes leaders from the housing authority, a land bank, the school district, the city’s transportation department, and nonprofits, was created to coordinate efforts. “The strike force identified approximately 2,000 undeveloped acres that could be repurposed for housing, categorizing the properties on factors such as development readiness, remediation needs and proximity to transit.”

In three years, the city built 7,000 new housing units and has 4,000 more in the pipeline. The city is also acquiring office buildings to convert to housing and is creatively using city-owned properties to add housing. “When asked what he would say to public officials who believe this model wouldn’t work in their cities, English pointed to the long-term cost of inequity — that economic stability depends on building and maintaining a strong middle class and preventing widespread poverty and violence that drive residents out of a city.”