Framing Atlanta’s BeltLine as a font for gentrification

2023-02-03T13:22:00-05:00

Although the BeltLine was designed to connect Atlantans and improve their quality of life, it has driven up housing costs on nearby land and pushed low-income households out to suburbs with fewer services than downtown neighborhoods. The BeltLine has become a prime example of what urban scholars call “green gentrification” – a process in which restoring degraded urban areas by adding green features drives up housing prices and pushes out working-class residents.

Atlanta’s in-progress 22-mile-long urban greenway is often cited alongside New York’s High Line and Houston’s Buffalo Bayou Park as developments that spurred displacement in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a concern echoed by opponents of the LA River Master Plan in recent years.

Georgia State University Professor of Urban Studies Dan Immergluck points to the BeltLine’s under-delivery of affordable housing in areas where property values exploded after its TIF was adopted in 2005 as its main flaw. The “urban regime” initiative to lure tech and other high-paying companies using tax incentives is also a factor. Between 1990 and 2019, Atlanta lost one-fifth (receding from 67% to 48%) of its Black population due to gentrification.

New leadership is attempting to address the issue through inclusionary zoning. Meanwhile, the BeltLine's CEO Clyde Higgs has admitted to past oversights and says they are now tracking the problem proactively in order to identify areas that “may re...

Olson Kundig designs new mixed-use high-rise along Atlanta's BeltLine

2021-05-21T13:57:00-04:00

A new mixed-use high-rise development designed by Olson Kundig is currently under construction along Atlanta’s BeltLine. Led by developer New City, LLC, 760 Ralph McGill Boulevard is a 1.1 million-square-foot project that includes office space and street-level retail organized around a central public plaza. The project, which is located on the site of a former Georgia Power operations center, also includes HKS as executive architect and Brasfield & Gorrie as general contractor.

760 Ralph McGill Boulevard is currently under construction along Atlanta's BeltLine. Photo: Google Maps/Luke Canan

“We’ve always felt this unique site gave us the opportunity to do something truly iconic,” says Jim Irwin, president of New City, LLC. “The new buildings expand local civic and cultural amenities, as well as introducing a modern new workplace for our future tenants.”

760 Ralph McGill Boulevard was designed to create new urban connections between Old Fourth Ward Park and the rapidly revitalizing A...

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Framing Atlanta’s BeltLine as a font for gentrification

Olson Kundig designs new mixed-use high-rise along Atlanta's BeltLine