By King Williams A few weeks back I had one of my usually spirited debates on Twitter, in this case it was about “West Midtown.” The debate had me then going to ask the question towards my other social media channels. Is “West Midtown” A) a real place and B) have you heard of it? […]
Tag: gentrification
Posted inColumns, Main Slider
I love Jay-Z but please don’t gentrify your neighborhood
Last week, multi-hyphenate rapper and entrepreneur, Jay-Z performed at the recent grand re-opening of the historic Webster Hall performance venue in New York City.During his set, he took time to address the murder of Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle in a brief freestyle that took off on Twitter, and was widely discussed on daytime talk shows.
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How do researchers measure gentrification?
Few words cause as much passion and consternation in Atlanta as “gentrification,” but here are three ways it’s actually measured.
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Yes, the Peters Street bars are closing, but read this first
By King Williams Late last week, a Facebook post shocked many with the news that the bars and restaurants at 249-259 Peters St. would all be closed by Dec. 31. The post sent people into a frenzy as they shared concerns about the fate of those establishments. That row of businesses includes: Spin; 255; Off […]
Posted inLatest News
City leaders announce $60 million in federal money for affordable housing works
Atlanta leaders gathered at an apartment complex on Metropolitan Avenue that’s seen better days. But they were there to celebrate $60 million in expected federal spending that will help pay for building and rehabbing places like Capitol View Apartments, to create or protect good, low-cost housing in Atlanta.
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s gentrification, now a challenge, started as sign of city’s spirit of civil rights
By Guest Columnist HATTIE DORSEY, civic volunteer, founder and retired president of the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership
Gentrification is a word used to describe what happens with housing development patterns in cities, particularly in the North, Midwest and West Coast cities, when neighborhoods change by race and by income. It was not a pattern that happened in the South, because housing in this region was segregated by race even years after the civil rights movement.
Posted inColumns
Hip Hop is one of Atlanta’s greatest exports; so why isn’t it embraced like it?
By King Williams When it opened in June 2017, the Pink Trap House became an instant phenomenon, not only in Atlanta, but in the United States and the global Hip Hop community. In a few short weeks, the Pink Trap House became the actual artistic, cultural and community gathering spot that so many gentrified real […]
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Auburn Avenue is our most important street. Here’s what we should be doing
As we close out Black History Month, I think it’s time we show some love towards the most important street in Atlanta – Auburn Avenue.
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A Conversation with Atlanta City Councilman Andre Dickens
Andre Dickens is the Post-3 At-Large, Atlanta City Councilman, who has been in office since 2013. Andre Dickens has been one of the few councilmen to be outspoken on issues of gentrification and housing affordability.
Posted inSonam Vashi
Q+A: Scott Markley on the racial impact of Atlanta’s apartment demolitions
Markley contextualizes the demolitions in the northern suburbs within the region’s long history of residential discrimination.
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MARTA stations can become true community centers
By King Williams Recently it was announced that MARTA, in partnership with Soccer in the Streets would be expanding its popular soccer program to 10 additional MARTA transit stations. Soccer in the Streets with support from Atlanta United Football Club, hopes to expand the program into a city-wide youth soccer league for kids in the […]
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Let’s build Atlanta as a city, not a suburb
Note to readers: This post contains Instagram videos and images from social media. The article continues below these items within the post.
It’s 2018, and the massive amounts of large-scale developments in Atlanta astound both long-time residents as well as newcomers.
The current pace of development rivals any of the other construction booms that Atlanta has had at any time in the modern era.
The danger is that we are replicating the suburban aesthetic and cultural environment of decades past by focusing on parking, car-oriented retail and a suburban design ethos with little regard for how these design choices work within the city.
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An introduction of SaportaReport’s newest columnist – King Williams
It started out with a simple question, “Momma, where did the people go?”
I was a young teen at the time, and the seemingly simple question perplexed my mom and also perplexed everyone else I would ask until I reached my senior year of college.
“Those people” were the people of East Lake Meadows, a public housing project on the Eastside of Atlanta which sat right in-between the city limits of Atlanta and my native city of Decatur.
Posted inSonam Vashi
Task force lays out affordability proposal at housing forum
HouseATL presents its affordable housing proposal to the public—including creating or preserving 20,000 units over the next decade.
Posted inLatest News
Atlanta mayor hints at high-level affordability post
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said this week that in a year’s time there will be formalized coordination of leadership on behalf of the city as it relates to affordability.
Posted inArts & Culture Seen, Thought Leader
Artwashing: Capitalism and Art
By Matthew TerrellWe’ve all heard the term “selling out” – sacrificing artistic purity for the sake of profit. There’s a perennial distrust amongst the arts community of business people, and the effect capitalism has on art. The idea is that caring about profit makes an artist and their work less noble, and destroys their creative […]
Posted inLyle Harris
MLK’s “Beloved Community” and the G-Word
An almost surefire way to start an argument in Atlanta is to utter the “G-word” – as in “gentrification.” In the midst of a torrid development boom, the inflow of affluent newcomers to Atlanta – and the involuntary uprooting of low-income residents that inevitably follows – reveals the racial and economic fault lines running through city’s social bedrock.
