‘A warning to other cities’: GSU professor releases new book on Atlanta’s housing crisis

September 21st, 2022

Georgia State University Urban Studies Professor Dan Immergluck joins “Closer Look” to discuss how to preserve housing affordability during the COVID-19 crisis.

What’s led to Atlanta’s housing crisis?

Georgia State urban studies professor Dan Immergluck makes it clear in his new book that it’s far from one misstep and instead a culmination of policy failures throughout the city’s history.

Immergluck joined “Closer Look” to talk about “Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Atlanta” and how the handling of major events and projects — like the 1996 Olympics and the Atlanta BeltLine — fueled gentrification and shrank the region’s affordable housing stock.

Georgia State University urban studies professor Dan Immergluck’s new book “Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First-Century Atlanta” (University of California Press) will be published next month.

“Cities like Atlanta need to take the lead to create change both at the city level and at the state level,” Immergluck said Wednesday, adding that policymaking at every level of government continues to shape the issue today.

“Do I think it’s too late? No. It’s just much harder and much more expensive to do now. Part of this book is a warning to other cities.”