She said that lawmakers have also failed to hold absentee landlords accountable for the condition of their properties and done nothing to protect residents from rising rents.

“That represents you are not serious, and that your goal is to make this a new place for new people,” said Salvary, who bought her home for $70,000 but saw the recession in 2008 wipe out some of the value it had gained. “I’ve been involved in this community since before the day I got here. And at this moment in time, I actually feel like I’m living on the Arthur M. Blank Family plantation, and I really don’t like that feeling.”

The troubles on the Westside date at least to the 1970s, when new highways isolated poor neighborhoods. In preparation for the 1996 Olympics, the city built the Georgia Dome — construction that created another barrier between the Westside and downtown. In 2002, rainstorms overwhelmed the area’s aging sewage system, wiping out entire blocks that were never rebuilt.

Blank became aware of these problems that same year, when he bought the Falcons for $545 million. (The value of the team has nearly quadrupled, to $2.125 billion, according to Forbes, and will surely rise once the stadium opens.) His foundation made incremental investments in the Westside, but he truly began to focus on the neighborhood after 2013, when the team chose to build on the 18 acres just south of the Georgia Dome for the new stadium, which will open in July. The Georgia Dome, which opened in 1992, played host to two Super Bowls but was deemed unworthy as the venue for another one and will be torn down to make way for parking.

Despite some challenging topography, Blank picked the spot because it was next to two commuter rail stations and an easy walk from downtown and some 10,000 hotel rooms. But the Atlanta Falcons Stadium Company paid nearly $20 million to one church to move out, while the state bought out another church. He also hired Fernandez, a former football player at Harvard who helped disadvantaged families in Austin, Tex., to work with the community on a development plan.