Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

Immergluck (urban studies, Georgia State Univ.) questions Atlanta's reputation as "the 'Black Mecca'" with this quietly searing book (p. 1). Arguing that the city failed to protect low-income residents by ensuring a supply of affordable housing, he shows how city officials and agencies repeatedly made choices favoring business owners, investors, and higher-income residents. The result is that in only 30 years, the Black population of Atlanta declined from 67 percent to 48 percent, and the city has some of the most rapid gentrification in the US. By analyzing agency reports, newspaper articles, city council minutes, and Census and real estate data, Immergluck demonstrates with technical clarity how the unique, promising partnership among city officials, Black leadership, and business owners--often called the "Atlanta Way" (p. 25)--nonetheless yielded the removal of affordable housing and demographic change. The book begins with a concise history of 20th-century Atlanta. Subsequent chapters delve into the Beltline project, gentrification, the subprime mortgage collapse, and the subsequent recession and recovery. Readers interested in urban politics in the South, gentrification and redevelopment in southern cities, and inclusive housing policies will find this research necessary reading.Summing Up: Essential. General readers through faculty; professionals.