Housing History of Atlanta (real estate, homes, neighborhoods)

[Listennow32]

Over the past couple of months I’ve been driving around different neighborhoods in the city of Atlanta and have been blown away by the sheer diversity of housing types in the older neighborhoods. From duplexes to shotgun homes to multiplexes… for anyone who has heard of missing middle housing the proof is here… but that being said I wanted to know if anyone was knowledgeable about or knew of a resource to learn more about the history of different neighborhoods and the developers that built the homes in these areas. It would be really interesting to get more context about how some of these neighborhoods were formed.

[Yoski]

While it want dive deep into any discussion on construction, Archive Atlanta will provide some interesting background into the history of Atlanta neighborhoods. Go back into the earlier podcast to find the ones on neighborhoods.

[equinox63]

Originally Posted by Listennow32

Over the past couple of months I’ve been driving around different neighborhoods in the city of Atlanta and have been blown away by the sheer diversity of housing types in the older neighborhoods. From duplexes to shotgun homes to multiplexes… for anyone who has heard of missing middle housing the proof is here… but that being said I wanted to know if anyone was knowledgeable about or knew of a resource to learn more about the history of different neighborhoods and the developers that built the homes in these areas. It would be really interesting to get more context about how some of these neighborhoods were formed.

Originally Posted by Yoski

While it want dive deep into any discussion on construction, Archive Atlanta will provide some interesting background into the history of Atlanta neighborhoods. Go back into the earlier podcast to find the ones on neighborhoods.

Excellent suggestion. I would just recommend going to the first episode (from several years ago) and starting from there. Most episodes are about 20 minutes. But each one is packed with interesting information about Atlanta's neighborhoods and/or history.

[waronxmas]

Well, this isn't an easy story to tell. Unlike other cities of the age, Atlanta's older housing stock isn't the result of any concerted effort (the housing projects would count, but they've been gone for 20 years) but rather a thing that just happened.

You see, every single neighborhood in the City of Atlanta except for Downtown began life as a real estate venture. What got built is was what was popular at the time. Occasionally you'll see neighborhoods with a general theme like the Victorians of Inman Park or bungalows of Virginia-Highland. Since subdivisions as we know them didn't exist until the middle of the 20th century, in Atlanta's oldest neighborhoods you'll see a wide variety of housing stock due to infill development being possible.

The fun thing as you have noticed is going around neighborhoods and just taking it in. It's quite unique what we have going on here.