Data paints a picture; people tell the story

The Beltline’s success story is undeniable. Just 20 years ago, a ring of dense, mostly kudzu-covered rusted railroad tracks marked a boundary between Atlanta’s neighborhoods. More often than not, those tracks historically were used to divide people and resources, too.

Today, the rail and kudzu have been replaced by a trail that invites both Beltline neighbors and city visitors to connect with one another. Development includes space that enables increased commerce and residents. Neighborhoods that were long overlooked for investment are experiencing renewed interest from homebuyers and businesses.

That said, we are aware that not everyone around the Beltline experiences its benefits evenly. How do we know? Because that’s what the data tells us.

We use data to identify and understand trends across Atlanta’s neighborhoods and within the Beltline’s planning area. Data helps enhance our decision-making and measure progress on our goals, too. Anyone who’s attended one of our public meetings, and the quarterly briefing in particular, is familiar with our affordable housing progress numbers or our economic development impact metrics. These programs and their goals are based on established best practices, but they have been tailored and refined to meet the specific needs of Atlanta’s communities. We’ve created a socioeconomic data explorer to help shine a light on where our efforts may be most impactful and used those metrics to establish the neighborhood stabilization areas surrounding our southwest corridors.

While data can direct our thinking where we place efforts, we know there is more to Atlanta’s communities than the number of residents, their median income, and how many renters versus homeowners there are. We know that every neighborhood has a unique history influenced by both community strength and past policy dictating how neighborhoods were resourced, and in some cases, erased. Many people on our staff know this through education, career work, and even the experience of having multiple generations of family calling Atlanta home.

But more importantly, we know this because of our communities. Through our own hosted public meetings, one-on-one conversations with residents, robust conversation with city council representatives or just showing up to community events, we gather input and ideas, questions and concerns from everyone we talk with. These conversations help us understand the lived experience behind the numbers. They help us understand the stories the numbers don’t tell, and they help us know needs and wants that the numbers themselves don’t identify.

We’ve developed the research and reports section to tie these threads of knowledge together with the programs we’ve developed. Our hope is to show the why behind the work and demonstrate that the Beltline is listening and helping in the best way we can in the places where the work is most needed.