Ph.D. Candidate, Christopher Blackburn recently published a paper on the cost and impact of a proposed anti-displacement program in the Westside of Atlanta. The program intends to fully subsidize property tax increases for eligible residents of neighborhoods located near the Mercedes Benz Stadium and the BeltLine multi-use trail. The authors' analysis combines data science and machine learning techniques to predict household-level income eligibility and forecast property appreciation rates using publicly available data. They estimate only a small fraction of residents in these neighbors are eligible for the program, while the costs of the program are substantially higher than previous estimates suggest. These findings have important implications for the design of anti-displacement policy programs. The low levels of forecasted eligibility, along with high program costs, suggest tax circuit-breaker programs may not be the cost effective policy option for limiting displacement of vulnerable communities.

Co-authors include: Jeremy Auerbach (Colorado State University), Haley Barton (Duke University), Amanda Meng (Georgia Tech) and Ellen Zegura (Georgia Tech). 

Click here to read more about the paper. 

For more information, please contact Christopher Blackburn (cblackburn8@gatech.edu)