Tech
How This $4.8 Billion Walkway Is Redefining Atlanta
The metro Atlanta region emerged as a national economic bright spot in recent decades. Population growth has boomed in Atlanta’s sprawling suburbs, fueling concerns over equity. The current vanguard of groups in the city are attempting to build with density while preserving affordable housing. Local planners believe that the BeltLine, a 22-mile-long pedestrian path, will reconnect communities and provide a bridge to the city’s future.
Financial and tech firms continue to flock toward metro Atlanta. This builds on the city’s strong logistics, entertainment and film, and health services industries.
Demand for quality housing in the region has become fierce, particularly in the city center.
“Atlanta is becoming a wider city,” said Nathaniel Smith, founder and chief equity officer at the Partnership for Southern Equity. “Now, whether we’ll be able to kind of balance that out and ensure that, you know, black folks don’t get pushed out … I’m not sure.”
In September 2022, the median home in the city of Atlanta was valued at about $400,000, according to Zillow’s Home Values Index. That price would be out of reach for the typical household in the city of Atlanta, which made about $64,179 annually in recent years. Rents also have ticked above the national median.
Some Atlanta locals believe ambitious urban redevelopment projects, such as the BeltLine, have contributed to fast-rising prices in the area.
The BeltLine is a 22-mile loop of walking and cycling trails built largely on abandoned rail lines and developed as a public-private partnership.
It was intended to connect different neighborhoods in the city with each other and to create, along the path, walkable communities where residents could access a variety of services without needing a car.
“We’ve put about $700 million into the BeltLine to date,” said Atlanta BeltLine Inc. CEO Clyde Higgs. “What we’ve seen is roughly an $8 billion private investment that has followed the BeltLine. That has caused a number of good things and also a number of pressures within the city of Atlanta.”
While the region evolves, a raft of community organizers are launching efforts to preserve housing affordability.
“It would have been great if we had an opportunity to secure more land earlier in the life of the BeltLine,” said Amanda Rhein, executive director of the Atlanta Land Trust, “because property values continue to increase in close proximity to the project.”
Watch the video to see how Atlanta plans to preserve housing affordability amid rapid growth.
Produced by: Carlos Waters
Additional Camera: Sydney Boyo
Graphics by: Jason Reginato, Alex Wood
Supervising Producer: Lindsey Jacobson
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The Rise Of Atlanta
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@itsxstarz9056
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
See I’m from Michigan stayed in downtown Atlanta few summers back I really liked the city I just despise the traffic wish USA would step up and get bullet trains or something like that to make city travel easier personally I like to drive but I wouldn’t be against having trains like China, Korea, and Japan
@-Katastrophe
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
5 billion for a walking path, naaaah, could have been better spent on HSR.
@Ieatcheeks94
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
This will increase crime, just wait…
@garrettcole2251
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Im a Californian coming to Atlanta
@kjorlaug1
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The belt line was supposed to be a light rail project to enable persons to access jobs and services without a car. It has been turned into a rich people walking trail.
@johnnyp3839
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Meanwhile the homeless issue is being ignored. Way to go Atlanta. 😮💨
@TheTrill334
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
I havent lived in atanta in 20 years but i see why people love the beltline . Before the beltline there was no easy way to walk or bike through atlanta safely. When they add the rail its going to really be the happening area of Atlanta. Because now you can not need a car to go out .
@user-bz2eq4co7f
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
I wouldn’t feel safe with that many black people around me in the current political climate . To address the elephant in the room
@seand67
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
More lip service and nothing truly affordable for many working people. They're only catering to the tech people that relocate here
@infoentrtainmentltd.4615
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Make Atlanta like Sydeny, St petersburg,paris, Berlin,venice!
@thaanonymous776
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Why would a wealthier, low-crime neighborhood want to be connected with a poorer, crime-prone one? If there was opposition to this project, it would be understandable and for good reason.
@trekuhl3966
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Atlanta is a very expensive city to live in, especially as you get closer to the city center. I moved out to Roswell only to have to deal with the horrendous traffic. Atlanta is the worst city for driving in the USA, it has a very limited mass transit system.
@patrisio3
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The title ("$4.8 Billion Walkway…") has to be incorrect and misleading. How in the world could a 22-mile walkway cost $4.8 billion? It shouldn't even cost $4.8 million. But billion? Must be paved with gold. I'm thinking that $4.8 billion includes some type of light rail train and other stuff also.
@nomaambundy9989
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
We already have "loops" that connect poor and affluent communities, they are called "roads"
This is the beginning of 15-minute city's coming to a U.S. city near YOU.
Now when they outlaw car usage, and fine you for being out of your area, and go to digital currency…
Liberals have ZERO for site for anything that actually matters.
This will go badly.
@jjeverson2269
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Atlanta is still lame and boring
@TheRealBlackula
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
This project was a waste of $$$! They should've built a rail that goes around the city neighborhoods! But that's TOO logical!
@starlinpena4943
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
This is what happenes when you put humans first and profits and corporations last
@XPCuts
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
gotta pay 5 billion to walk
@seanleaf3165
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Blacks made Atl. Now get out!
@seanleaf3165
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Check out Jason Blacks movie Gentrified it'll explain everything.
@Just-Human
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Lots of tents there.
@DavidPerez-de4ib
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The 15 minute cities are here.
@spsaurin
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
if they'd stop shooting each other in certain neighborhoods, there might be more investment.
@fondreneric4189
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Crypto user could top 1B by the end of 2023 as nations continue to adopt Bitcoin Buy the dip, and HODLfor the long term.Bitcoin Always comes back.
@benthungin8949
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
ATL going woke, soon to be broke
@BabsW
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The Beltline has nothing on Chicago's Lakefront. I'm literally moving out of Atlanta as we speak.
@RickLindstrom
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
If it has 2 million visits a year and costs about 5 billion to create, then that is about 2500$ per visitor. That seems crazy to me. If it was funded directly by the visitors no one would ever pay to visit it. I love the idea of a trail like this but why is it so cost ineffective?
@mattmattson7152
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
It’s absurd to me that the government is too weak and spineless to raise any kind of taxes or impose any vacant unit laws on the huge reality corporations.
@mattmattson7152
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The major problem here that the video does not touch on enough is transportation. Unfortunately the sprawl is already happening and is unlikely to slow, the solution is better public transit to, from, and around the city. The infrastructure we have in place currently is laughable.
@user-ln8hp4vt5z
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Pure Ignorance. Defund Politician’s and Government. Pure Media Scum.
@ItsMe-yv9jd
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
?? It does not take a genius to see how the greedy and corrupt politicians that approved this ridiculous project are secretly lining their pockets, with a chunk of that multi billion dollar walkway… the tax dollars paid to the developer, (the mafia that controls the construction in the city) that was awarded the contract, will reward those political members as promised, for awarding him that massive contract, by paying off those politicians with offshore numbered accounts that the politicians children can secretly access, or with luxury real estate properties owned by the developer that politicians family members can use rent free for life, or offer the politicians cushy lifetime positions on the board that pay millions of dollars a year, )or any other method used to launder funds.)
@christiangonzalez6054
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
So we need to invest in low-income neighborhoods, but if you do you end up gentrifying it? Is there no solution then? Is it just a doubled edged sword?
@bryanjohnson8162
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
4.8 billion could have helped a lot of f**** people a walking path are you serious!?!?!??
@matthewhuszarik4173
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The weather still sucks in Georgia.
@tc2334
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Americans really do an excellent job at fooling poor people into thinking that reappropriating rich people's money is difficult.
@thechemtrailkid
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
Once again, speculators ruin a community. We should, through legal means, change our laws to recognize that their is a line in the sand so to speak and that if you cross it, you will go to jail.
@markmilitant
December 21, 2023 at 8:53 pm
The belt line going be the new San Francisco and Brooklyn Project gentrification will push out the minorities the real Atlanta