White Population Declines In Atlanta Suburbs
The Atlanta suburbs are getting more diverse.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Johns Creek, a suburb of Atlanta, is now a majority Blacks and other people of color with a population of 82,453 residents. Since 2010, Hispanic residents increased by 45%, there were 1,606 new Black residents, and the Asian population grew by 37.5%, according to the Census.
Additionally, in the past decade, 53 cities in Georgia are comprised of a majority of non-whites with only 10 cities statewide flipping to majority-white. Georgia’s statewide white population is a little more than 50% white.
Mike Bodker, who has served as mayor of Johns Creek since 2006, when the city was incorporated, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “We celebrate our diversity … It’s a source of pride. I love the fact that we have so many different cultures here and that there’s so much to learn from my fellow citizens.
As for the white residents leaving, Bodker said, “I don’t think they are looking around and saying, ‘I want to get out of here because of the population change.’ I don’t think there’s a fear. We’re not a community that has infighting.”
Deirdre Oakley, an urban sociologist at Georgia State University, had a different perspective, “I mean, it’s got to be about race. Because, what else would it be about? These are good schools, safe neighborhoods. ... There’s no other explanation for it.”
Oakley continued, “What suburban whites keep doing is, as their city or county in the suburbs gets more and more diverse, they tend to move farther out. It’s sort of an iterative effect. So if one city becomes, you know, 30% Asian, that might lead to a percentage of the white population moving farther out. And then the question is, how far will they go without just leaving the state?”
In 2020, Johns Creek earned the title as the number two safest city in Georgia and the number two best place to raise a family in Georgia.
