Community Corner

A New Study Suggests that the Grass is No Longer Greener in the Suburbs of Atlanta

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta came in at number one in a recent review of suburban poverty data.

Using data from the Brookings Institution, the 24/7 Wall Street website places Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta in the number one spot for "Cities Where Suburban Poverty is Skyrocketing" (between 2000 and 2011).

This may directly correlate with the closing of many public housing facilities that were once a staple in metro Atlanta, or do you think the rise in poverty in the suburbs is due to another reason?

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The article reads, in part:

More than 780,000 people lived below the poverty line in the Atlanta suburbs in 2011 — a nearly 159% increase from the year 2000. The Atlanta area has been one of the fastest-growing in the nation, with the metro population rising 24% between 2000 and 2010. This was concentrated almost entirely in the suburbs, where the population grew by 26%, versus just 0.2% for the city itself. At the end of 2011, 88% of all the area’s residents living below the poverty lived in the suburbs — the largest proportion of any large metro area in the nation.

Find out what's happening in Cascadewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

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