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In yesterday’s post, I looked at migration around the state of Georgia. I especially pointed out how a few military bases and universities impacted migration in a disproportionate way, and also Atlanta’s relationship with the rest of the state. For today’s post, I’m going to delve a little deeper into Atlanta-specific migration: and specifically the question of race in migration.

When I started thinking about this post, I considered a voluminous everything-you-need-to-know post, looking at migration by race, income, census tract information, commuter range, property values, etc, as I’ve done for Louisville and Cincinnati in the past. I’ll still look at some of that data for this post, but really I want to drill down on just one big question: what role does race play in Atlanta’s local migration? I’m a southerner to the bone (raised in Kentucky and half my family tree is Georgian), so the question of race is an ever-present consideration. I could wax on about the “haunted south” as Flannery O’Connor put it, but for now I’ll just say that I think race is an extremely important issue for any study of migration, but especially for Atlanta, the south’s central metropolis.