Preparing for the Post-COVID-19 Land Grab

In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008, the tell-tale “We buy homes” signs started going up at seemingly every corner of Atlanta. They promised quick cash during a hard time. What wasn’t clear at first was the true cost of that cash — not just losing one’s home, but entire neighborhoods, to unseen buyers looking to flip homes on a scale never seen before. By 2019, according to a Governing analysis, over 47 percent of Atlanta’s census tracts had gentrified. This story isn’t unique to Atlanta, of course, but Atlanta’s status as the “Black mecca” makes for a more complicated story at the intersection of race and class.