The Second Ghetto

Abstract

Hirsch provided a model that works well in understanding earlier southern as well as northern cities. But how well does this model fit cities today? In Atlanta, the creation of mixed-income housing to replace traditional public housing follows the same plan of tenant removal as before, although class rather than race is the defining factor. In a black-run city with increasing middle-class African American suburbanization, officials are urging the middle class, of all races, to return to the city. The mixed-income housing is being used to reshape the ghetto and draw the middle class back. As with the previous white-controlled city government, little concern is given to the housing and relocation issues of the black poor.