The city of Atlanta is often considered the new “capital” for business and banking in the south. It has a large industrial base with many Fortune 500 companies, an international airport, and is within easy reach of other major cities like Dallas and Charlotte. However, there are some downsides that come along with being such a popular destination for foreign investment.
The “capital of the new south” is a question that has been asked for quite some time. The city of Atlanta, Georgia, has been named as the capital of the South by CNN.
Atlanta has far surpassed its unglamorous beginnings — founded in 1847 at the terminus of the Western & Atlantic rail line.
From its days as a center for military supplies during the Civil War to its burning by Union forces (the setting for “Gone With the Wind”), to the introduction of Coca-Cola in a city drugstore in 1886, to its crucial role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s (Martin Luther King Jr. was born there), to its hosting of the Olympics in 1996, this metro area has managed to surpass older, more picturesque locations to claim the title of capital of the South.
In his book “Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946-1996,” Frederick Allen linked the city’s rise to regional power. Allen describes how local business owners and government officials worked together to create a welcoming climate for business.
Photo courtesy of Deposit Photos.
Atlanta’s influence on culture
The TV program with the same name, developed by Daniel Glover, who was reared in neighboring Stone Mountain, Georgia, may best depict the city’s modern spirit.
In “Atlanta,” Glover plays Earn, a Princeton dropout who is attempting to assist his cousin Paper Boi in starting a music career. The show, which one reviewer dubbed a “existential comedy,” follows Earn and his cousin as they go into Atlanta’s rap scene in search of glory.
In a society where success is elusive and the truth of the fight is unadorned, the city itself acts as the background.
The fact that Atlanta has succeeded and is now significant enough to serve as the backdrop for a TV series developed by one of the varied and fascinating artists working today belies those challenges and human shortcomings. (In addition to writing, acting, producing, and directing, Glover also performs as Childish Gambino, a musician with a number of hit singles.)
Novikat/Istockphoto is the source of the image.
Attracting up-and-coming professionals
Young adults with aspirations come here from all over the South. The majority of those who left small communities in Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, or Alabama for the metropolis in the north and are now eager to return do not do so.
They are deciding on Atlanta because of its diversified population and generally liberal political climate.
The director of institutional strategy at Mynd, David Zanaty, said that there is an influx of people into Atlanta from all around the Southeast. “A lot of real estate refugees are migrating to our area because they love how affordable it is to live here.”
Source of the image: DepositPhotos.com.
Despite rising real estate prices, people are moving to Atlanta
The price of living is beginning to rise.
The crowds are still arriving. The Census Bureau reports that 400,000 more individuals have moved into Metro Atlanta since 2015.
A further 34,000 people were added in 2020, and the population of the metro area reached 6,013,000 at the start of 2022, a growth of 1.73 percent from 2021. This made Atlanta one of the fastest-growing metro regions in the nation.
At the conclusion of the previous year, property prices began to level down a little, according to Realtor.com:
- The median list price fell from $399,000 in November to $389,900 in December.
- From $375,000 in November to $360,000 in December, the median transaction price decreased.
- The number of days an item spent on the market increased significantly from 49 in November to 52 in December.
- The median selling price increased from $327,000 in December 2020 to $360,000 in December 2021, an increase of more than 10% from year to year.
Source of the image: DepositPhotos.com.
Atlanta housing rental
In 2021, rents increased as well. According to Atlanta Agent Magazine, rentals in the suburbs increased dramatically while increases for one- and two-bedroom apartments in the city of Atlanta were 8.8% and 10%, respectively.
Since just 60,000 new apartment units have been built to the metro region since 2015, the price increases are the result of supply not keeping up with demand.
The cities north of Atlanta with the largest price increases were Alpharetta (18.6%), Duluth (17%), Marietta (12.8%), Sandy Spring (12.9%), and Smyrna (15.4 percent). Additionally, there was a sharp increase in two-bedroom apartments in Smyrna (15.4%), Marietta (20%), and Duluth (20%).
Photograph courtesy of DragonImages/iStockPhoto.
jobs available in Atlanta
18 Fortune 500 firms, including Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Aflac, and the United Parcel Service, are based in the region. For 20 years straight, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport held the title of busiest hub in the world. However, an airport in China supplanted it last year.
According to Zanaty, “Atlanta became what it is as a result of being a center of transit, including train and aviation.” The economy is quite diverse; it is not just based on the oil or the technology industries.
This strengthens its resistance to a downturn, he said.
Three Spots/iStock is the source of the image.
higher education and early career
Additionally, the Atlanta metropolitan area is home to 57 universities, including historically black colleges and universities like Clark Atlanta University, Spelman and Morehouse Colleges, the highly regarded private Emory University, and public universities like Georgia State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Atlanta has a lot of business activity, thus wages are reasonable. According to the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, the median income in 2020 was $82,700.
Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, provided the image.
Attracting investment
Atlanta is a desirable location for real estate investors because of all these qualities.
Director of single-family rentals at Mynd Mike Overley remarked, “There are extremely high occupancy rates and enormous demand.” According to him, more than 80% of the employment that were lost due to the pandemic are now available in sectors like sales, services, and technology.
Overley is concerned that the city’s popularity may be getting out of hand.
Prices have reached alarming levels, the man said. “Accessibility is a problem. You will need to pay if you want to be near to the city.
But Overley asserts that the city’s capacity to draw visitors from all around the world is one of its strengths. This place is such a melting pot, he continued. “You may observe it when you attend a local athletic event. There are folks sporting city-specific jerseys from throughout the nation.
Image credit: Lavin Photography/IstockPhoto.
Atlanta’s growth’s drawbacks
The Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), the area’s bus and rail network, needs to be expanded in order to better service the Atlanta region’s transportation needs. The suburbs, where most residents depend on their vehicles, have strong hostility to any attempts to establish more train lines.
Regional planning encounters difficulties, according to Zanaty, because of the “balkanization of jurisdictions” caused by metro Atlanta’s approximate 28 counties and 140 cities. Some of the smallest counties in the nation are found in Georgia.
“It’s really difficult to get agreement on a big approach,” he remarked.
Gabrieleckert/Istockphoto gets credit for the photo.
inexpensive housing
One upshot of this lack of regional planning is that there is a dearth of inexpensive housing near the area’s job centers. And with more development — something like 33,000 housing starts a year — traffic and sprawl are ongoing concerns.
The gentrification of the southern portion of the metro region, which is separated from the north by the east-to-west highway I-20, is one positive development in the Atlanta market, in Overley’s opinion. Before, there were problems with crime and poor schools in this region, but both have since improved.
Atlanta’s south side is gaining momentum, according to Overley. Meanwhile, “the renovated regions in northwest Atlanta are driving people nuts.”
Rodclement Photography/Istockphoto is the source of the image.
The rental industry
And with housing prices on the rise, The rental industry is looking more attractive to many Atlanta transplants. Since the city has no natural boundaries, like a mountain range or a coast, it will keep growing outward as new residents arrive.
The manner that housing is consumed is one thing that Mynd is revealing, according to Zanaty. “Your initial residence may be a rental.”
Photograph courtesy of dominicanjoe/istockphoto.
Atlanta’s and Georgia’s overall problems
Atlanta is suffering with a spike in violent crime, including a 58 percent increase in murders last year, like many other major American cities. Researchers believe that the pandemic’s effects on at-risk urban inhabitants and its effects on the courts and police agencies contributed to this national trend.
The crime wave was noted as a contributing reason in Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ announcement in May that she would not seek re-election. (She said it had no bearing.) Felicia Moore, the head of the City Council, and Sharon Gay, a lawyer, are the two candidates vying for the position of mayor, and both have made battling crime a key component of their campaigns. (American city crime rates are much lower than their peak periods in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Atlanta saw 157 murders in 2020, up from 99 in 2019. 1989 had a high of 246 homicides.)
Southern Drone Group/Istockphoto is the source of the image.
new election laws
A reaction among business CEOs resulted from Georgia’s new election legislation, which Governor Brian Kemp signed on March 25. As a result, Major League Baseball decided to move its All-Star game from Atlanta to Denver’s Coors Field in July. Although they originally said nothing about the bill directly, major Atlanta-based firms including Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Delta Airlines made remarks in favor of voting rights. A group of 72 black CEOs were inspired by the legislation to write a statement urging business America as a whole to openly and forcefully oppose any new laws that might limit the rights of black voters.
The legislation restricts the use of ballot drop boxes, mandates additional voter identification requirements for absentee votes, gives state authorities the authority to take over local election boards, and makes it illegal to approach voters in line and offer them food and drink.
The bill faces legal issues, and Georgia has being sued by the US Justice Department. The fight over the election legislation is still going on, despite the fact that there will be a gubernatorial election in 2022 and that Democrats won both Senate contests in the state in January. However, it seems that it has not yet had a significant impact on Atlanta’s business-friendly environment.
Related:
This article originally appeared on Mynd.co and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.
Sean Davis is the author of the picture.
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Picture source: istockphoto/fizkes.
AlertMe
It is not a question of if the U.S. capital will be moved, but when it will happen. This city in the South might just become the new ‘capital’. Reference: should the u.s. capital be moved.
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