Atlanta Public Housing change for good or bad?

Good riddance to bad housing
Atlanta Journal Constitution

Last week, a small knot of protesters stood outside the Atlanta Housing Authority’s downtown headquarters chanting “Shame, Shame on Renee Glover,” the agency’s soft-spoken executive director.

Taking turns with the bullhorn, they criticized Glover for her ambitious and largely successful efforts to overhaul public housing in Atlanta, which they claim has led to the mistreatment of poor residents unable to fend for themselves.

Despite the combative rhetoric, the protest seemed quaintly nostalgic. It reunited “old school” political leaders and battle-tested advocates for the homeless with graying civil rights veterans clinging to outdated notions about how best to overcome the intractable social problems that bedevil Atlanta and other American cities.

But the protesters only needed to look a few miles in any direction to find evidence that they’re stuck in an ideological time warp. The future, as envisioned by Glover and others who have embraced a more pragmatic approach to those problems, is a better place.

For example, Carver Homes, a public housing complex in southwest Atlanta, once sprawled like a cancerous growth on the surrounding neighborhood. It has since been transformed into a mixed-income community with a new elementary school, athletic fields and upscale amenities.

Further north, the Perry Homes projects, which had been a wasteland of abject poverty, crime and despair, is no more. In its place stands The West Highlands, an oasis of single- family houses, condos and apartments where middle and upper-class professionals live side by side with neighbors whose incomes qualify them for public assistance. More HERE