Momentum is building to address metro Atlanta’s dismal ranking of 50th out of 50 cities when it comes to economic mobility.
On Jan. 13, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation invited Harvard Professor Raj Chetty to come to Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium to talk about his research on economic mobility, with a focus on the City of Atlanta.
The next day, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) convened a group of nearly 30 metro leaders to talk about how the region can address and improve its last-place ranking. Chetty, director of Opportunity Insights, spoke to the group, which included the elected leaders of the region’s five core counties — Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who also chairs ARC’s board, is embracing both the City of Atlanta focus and the need for a regional response. It’s important for ARC to be part of the economic mobility conversation because Chetty’s study ranks urban regions, not cities, Dickens told me during a farewell reception for columnist Bill Torpy at Manuel’s Jan. 16.
Anna Roach, ARC’s president and executive director, couldn’t agree more.
“We’re loving the momentum that’s generated in our urban core,” Roach said during a Team’s meeting Jan. 19 with other ARC staff members. “We are hoping it sets the foundation, almost a blueprint, for what we need to be doing at the regional level.”
That’s why ARC was intentional about inviting regional leaders to its offices on Jan. 14. Attendees included policymakers, members of the banking community, philanthropic funders and civic leaders who are involved with the economic mobility ecosystem.
Roach said it was an opportunity to follow up on the “momentum from the Blank Foundation event in Atlanta to getting key regional voices around the table to talk about economic mobility at a regional level.”
There’s been a growing awareness and focus on economic mobility in the Atlanta region after Chetty’s 2024 study showed that metro Atlanta was dead last in the country.
Back when Chetty did his initial study in 2014, Atlanta ranked 49th, and Charlotte was 50th. But the Charlotte community responded by bringing civic leaders together, and the city’s rank went from 50th to 38th in the 2024 study. That led to Atlanta becoming 50th.
Roach said she’s “really excited” about the current energy around economic mobility. ARC is looking to leverage the work underway in the City of Atlanta in a partnership that includes the Blank Foundation, making a $75 million grant to Blue Meridian to work at the neighborhood level.
The ARC wanted to “pull together the key regional voices necessary to start the conversation about how we’re going to begin to take action steps at a region-wide level.”
ARC is one of the big four entities with a regional mandate. The other three are the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, the United Way of Greater Atlanta and the Metro Atlanta Chamber. Invitations were sent to each. Frank Fernandez of the Community Foundation and Alvin Glympf of United Way attended the meeting, but the Atlanta Chamber did not.
Still, many business leaders were in the room to hear Chetty share “some innovative solutions” that Opportunity Insights is piloting across the country and could benefit the Atlanta region.
“Everyone in that room is committed to come back to the table now to work toward specific solutions and action items for metro Atlanta to take as a region,” Roach said. “It is time for action, and I am ready for that action.”
Roach said she can only speak for ARC, but she knows it is going to have to be a “collective group effort” that includes the business, foundations and other civic organizations.
“Key to our success is going to be establishing an organization whose sole responsibility it is to make progress in this area,” Roach said. “ARC will be advocating with our regional partners around that fundamental notion that this has to be somebody’s full-time job to make progress in this area.”
It could be an organization modeled after Learn4Life, a nonprofit that was established by the four big regional entities, to focus on public education in the five core counties.
Charlotte created a standalone organization, Leading on Opportunity, led by Sherri Chisholm, who attended both Chetty events last week and has been sharing her perspectives on what works, so Atlanta won’t have to reinvent the wheel.
“I think there’s a there’s a ton we can learn from Charlotte,” said Roach, who said Leading on Opportunity has taken a collective approach to its work. “No one person, no one agency, should be in charge of this. It’s really about pulling all of the players to the table. Another thing we can learn from Charlotte is that there’s no single solution or magic bullet. It is a series of interventions that have to come together, like a constellation of interventions that need to come together to make incremental progress.”
Fundamental to success will be having a data dashboard and metrics to keep track of progress. Ann Carpenter, ARC’s chief research innovation officer, prepared a snapshot of economic mobility in metro Atlanta (see charts below outlining “Five Factors that Correlate with Income Mobility.”)
Also, Neighborhood Nexus, once part of ARC, has been focused on bringing the community together and tracking economic mobility in the region.
“I’m not sure there’s any other data organization that’s as plugged into the nonprofit community as Neighborhood Nexus,” Roach said. “They’re just uncanny with leveraging data around advocacy in that nonprofit space, and I just don’t know how this work would progress without them being at the table. I think they’re an integral partner.”
Mike Alexander, ARC’s chief operating officer, said it will be important to “convene on a regular basis” to move forward in addressing the region’s economic mobility needs.
“You could feel a lot of energy in the room, and you could feel the commitment,” Alexander said. “I think everybody sees this as a real North Star for where we need to go to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make metro Atlanta as strong as it can be.”
Roach said ARC would like to bring back the same group of folks in the next 90 days to move forward on the next steps for the region.
“I think you just have the leadership in place now that sees the urgency and is willing to take action,” Roach said. “That’s why you see the momentum that you’re seeing right now.”
Note to readers: Atlanta Way 2.0 has been working to elevate awareness of the region’s economic mobility measures. In September, the nonprofit held its first-ever Atlanta Way Day, and economic mobility was featured with a presentation from Sherri Chisholm and a local response panel that included Anna Roach of the Atlanta Regional Commission, Frank Fernandez of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, and Milton Little of United Way of Greater Atlanta. The Metro Atlanta Chamber was invited to participate, but it was unable to attend. Atlanta Way 2.0 and SaportaReport will continue their focus on economic mobility to help increase understanding, visibility and community action on the topic.
