A Case Study of Displacement in Suburban Marietta, Georgia

An article in City Observatory's City Commentary sheds light on an underreported fact of life in some parts of the country: suburban displacement.

"Imagine this," writes Joe Cortright, "A city government takes $65 million in public money and buys up more 1,300 units of aging but affordable housing, which is home mainly to low income and minority residents. It demolishes the housing, and plans to sell the land to private developers for office and retail development."

The situation described by Cortright might sound like something from the bad old news of urban renewal, but it's actually happening right now, in Marietta, Georgia. According to Cortright the story is a cautionary tale of gentrification and displacement but in an underrepresented setting: the suburbs.

In this case, the demolitions will destroy 10 percent of the multi-family housing in the city, leaving the families who live there to find new homes and new schools. The article includes a lot more details about situation as a case study of gentrification outside of the traditional sore spots of San Francisco, New York, and Washington D.C.

Planetizen readers might recall Marietta as the same city where Raquel Nelson was convicted of manslaughter when a drunk driver struck her and three of her children as the crossed a suburban highway near a bus stop in their neighborhood.