Term of Award

Spring 2019

Degree Name

Master of Science, Applied Geography

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Geology and Geography

Committee Chair

Xiaolu Zhou

Committee Member 1

Robert Yarbrough

Committee Member 2

Claude Van Sant

Abstract

Housing affordability has been a widely examined subject for populations residing in major metropolitan regions around the world. The relationship between housing affordability and the city’s demographics and its volume of urban development are important to take into consideration. In the past two decades there has been an increasing volume of literature detailing Atlanta Georgia’s large-scale redevelopment project, the Atlanta BeltLine (ABL), and its relationship with Atlanta’s Metropolitan population and housing affordability. The first objective of this paper is to study the relationship between housing affordability at two scales within the Atlanta Metropolitan Area (AMA) for both renters and homeowners. The two separate scales in this study include an area representing the entire ABL loop and ten AMA suburban districts. The second objective is to study the relationship between demographic factors and housing affordability for four cases. The four cases are ABL renters, ABL homeowners, suburban renters, and suburban homeowners. Data for housing affordability and demographics were obtained for the year 2016 from the U.S. Census Bureau website. Data from 208 census tracts were used to represent the ten AMA suburbs selected based on criteria and 39 census tracts to represent the ABL region. The data was analyzed using GIS, t-test, and variations of multiple regression. Findings showed that the average percent of income allocated to pay for monthly housing costs (APIHC) for ABL renters are more influenced by demographics than the APIHC for ABL homeowners and the population living in AMA suburbs. Results showed that the APIHC for ABL renters decreased as median income and number of household earners increased thus improving their status of affordability. An increase in APIHC for ABL renters was tied to an increase in household size. These results can be used to assist in further investigation of renters living near the ABL and how development of the ABL is impacting housing affordability within its vicinity and beyond.

OCLC Number

1111578178

Research Data and Supplementary Material

Yes

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