ABSTRACT
The Atlanta metropolitan area encompasses 20 northern Georgia counties and includes development patterns that range from very urban to very rural. The Atlanta metropolitan area was the ninth-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States in 2010. In 1994, responding to the attention that would be on the city of Atlanta in 1996, and that would reveal the poor physical and social conditions in Atlanta's large housing projects, Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) embarked on an ambitious program to redevelop more than a dozen large sites. Without a large body of water or mountain range nearby, the Atlanta metropolitan area has no physical barriers to growth. This chapter gives a general picture of Atlanta and the Atlanta metropolitan area covering key demographic indicators, primarily for the years 2000 and 2010. It discusses that the increase in the percentage of Hispanics was especially significant in Gwinnett County.
