Atlanta Through the Archives

Mixed-Income Approach Overtakes Public Housing; Push for Revitalization (1990s)

Summary

With a stock of dilapidated public housing and as the host city of the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta dramatically shifts its historic housing policy to emphasize new mixed-income market-based housing and begins the destruction of its remaining housing.

This decade included a substantial push for revitalization that focused on Black people in Black neighborhoods—not Black people influencing white neighborhoods or white people taking over Black neighborhoods. Funding projects such as HUD’s Empowerment Zones aimed to encourage the private sector in urban redevelopment through community and economic development programs. Similarly, the HOPE VI program brought significant changes to the public housing landscape, pushing projects to mixed-income and often dramatically reducing the number of units (without any plans in place for displaced residents). Most public housing projects in Atlanta were converted to HOPE VI mixed-income developments or demolished entirely.