Gentrification is an elusive spatial and social phenomenon which, in simple terms, entails the displacement of low-income residents by new residents from wealthier neighbourhoods (Park et. al., 2020). Some common symptoms of gentrification include changes in property values, racial demographics, and the emergence of amenities which are typically tailored to appeal to high income residents (Chapple & Zuk, 2016). That being said, tracking these changes, which are often non-linear and ambivalent in their progression, can be difficult to accomplish. As such, establishing a framework to assess gentrification in order to mitigate its impacts through effective policies is a subject of scholarly debate. Previously established frameworks often account for the convoluted nature of gentrification by introducing typologies that detail the particular phase of gentrification an area of interest is experiencing. For instance, the Urban Displacement Project has defined a typology which accounts for changes observed in a range of socioeconomic and housing factors over a given time frame (Thomas et. al., 2020). Some frameworks have focused particularly on transit oriented development (TOD) as an indicator of gentrification (Jones & Ley, 2016; Padeiro, Louro & da Costa, 2019), while others have looked at changes in commercial and business variables as a method of explaining the displacement of low income residents (Park, 2020). Yet, a consensus on which factors define gentrification, and how to assess them, has yet to be reached (Easton, Lees, Hubbard & Tate, 2019; Eckerd, Kim & Campbell, 2018; Preis, Janakiraman, Bob & Steil, 2020).

Over the past two decades, Atlanta has exemplified many characteristics of gentrification across its nine counties (Chappel & Thomas, 2020). For instance, between 2000 and 2017, approximately half of Atlanta’s neighbourhoods witnessed an increase in housing costs (Chappel & Thomas, 2020). Further, while the population of Metropolitan Atlanta has generally increased by 35 percent over the past 10 years (Aragón et. al., 2020), the suburban poverty rate has witnessed the most significant increase across all metropolitan areas in the United States (Markley, 2016). These trends informed our decision to attempt to quantify the progression of gentrification across metropolitan Atlanta and examine the presence of amenity factors which might correlate with gentrification.