The Politics of Fair and Affordable Housing in Metropolitan Atlanta: Challenges for Educational Opportunity

This qualitative case study considers the politics of the coalitions that emerged to address fair and affordable housing in the Atlanta metropolitan area between 2017 and 2020 and the connections or barriers they identified to educational opportunity. It applies regional, civic capacity, and social construction of policy frameworks to explore in which arenas the two issue areas of housing and education have been linked by policymakers, and by selected civic entities, non-profit organizations, and philanthropies. The case draws on demographic data, interviews, and documents in the analysis of the barriers to, and possibilities for, coordination of housing and education policy instruments to promote educational opportunity in the region. The author found that the majority of efforts to bridge the two policy areas were developed and led by non-profit actors, and mostly took the form of place-based interventions rather than mobility programs. Implications of these findings for policy design are discussed.