The Atlanta Paradox (review)

Southeastern Geographer Vol. XXXXI, No. 2, November 2001, pp. 314-316 REVIEWS The Atlanta Paradox. David Sjoquist, editor. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 300 pp., maps, figures, tables, index, refs. $34.95 cloth (ISBN 0-87154808 -9). Eric J. Fournier The Atlanta Paradox is a volume of The Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality project. The study—funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and the Ford Foundation —surveyed employers and households in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles in order to explore the effects of economic restructuring on racial and ethnic groups in the inner city. The study involved more than 40 researchers at 15 colleges and universities throughout the United States. The title The Atlanta Paradox refers to the metropolitan area's sharp contrasts between wealth and poverty—a pattern with historic, sociological, economic, and spatial significance. Exploring this paradox requires a multi-disciplinary approach and editor Sjoquist (an economist at Georgia State University) has gathered a group of sociologists, historians, economists, and geographers—most based at colleges and universities in and around Atlanta—to investigate and report. The chapters in this text are based primarily on data gathered from the Greater Atlanta Neighborhood Study (GANS). The GANS used a four-stage probability sample that resulted in over 1 ,500 face-to-face interviews. Interviewees were asked a series of questions about demographic and economic characteristics. Other questions probed attitudes and perceptions regarding discrimination and segregation. In addition a companion survey was administered to 800 employers to explore elements of the city's job market. Sjoquist presents details about the methodology behind the study in the introductory chapter. Chapters 2 and 3 provide geographic and historic background for the subsequent chapters. Truman Hartshorn and Keith Ihlanfeldt report on the growth of Atlanta and the spatial dimensions of the Atlanta paradox—an underbounded central city that accounts for just 11% of total metropolitan area's population. In addition to describing characteristics of Atlanta's growth and development, Hartshorn and Ihlanfeldt also provide information on the city's racial patterns, patterns of wealth and poverty, and sectoral shifts in the city's employment structure. The chapter contains 12 tables and several maps and figures. It provides an excellent introduction to the city and to the rest ofthis volume. Dr. Fournier is Assistant Professor and Chair, Department ofGeography at Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229. E-mail: ejfourni@samford.edu. REVIEWS315 In the third chapter, Ronald Bayer offers a historic synopsis of race relations and racial segregation in the city. He contends that the city's long history of continuous discrimination (despite a lack of overt violence during the Civil Rights era) laid the foundation for current patterns. He supports this contention with a brief look at residential patterns, exclusionary zoning practices, employment structure, and transportation issues. For a much more detailed look at this fascinating story, see Bayer (1996). The attitudes and perceptions that help create and sustain the high degree of residential segregation in Atlanta are explored in the fourth chapter. Both Black and White residents were questioned about their neighborhood preferences. While the survey showed a continued presence ofracial prejudice in the city, the authors found some reason for optimism in that most respondents reported a general acceptance of mixed race neighborhoods despite their relative paucity in the city. In the fifth chapter , Mark Thompson offers four hypotheses to explain Atlanta's pattern ofresidential segregation. These include racial differences in economic factors, a racial gap in perceptions and information regarding Atlanta's predominantly White northern suburbs , institutional barriers in Atlanta's housing market, and finally racial differences in residential preferences. Using the GANS data, the author concluded that many of the city's Black residents felt they would not be welcome in the city's northern suburbs and many felt that institutional barriers helped reinforce the city's pattern of residential segregation. The remaining six chapters in this volume deal with various aspects of the city's job market. Using responses gathered from both the resident and employer surveys, authors examine the spatial mismatch between jobs and job seekers, racial differences in earnings equality, the intersection of gender and race in the city's job market, job segregation based...