Going From Suburbia to Intown Living

Over the past few months, there have been several articles posted on the internet about how large groups of people are moving from the suburbs into the city.

The trend of homeowners leaving the surburbs for a more urban lifestyle, has caused home prices in some urban neighborhoods to sky rocket. This has been particularly the case in Atlanta, Georgia. For many years the suburban areas of Atlanta experienced a lot of residential growth. This included suburban communities such as Roswell, Peachtree City, Duluth and Roswell. However in more recent years many suburban residents began complaining about their long daily commutes. Although there are some residents fortunate enough to work near their homes, the majority work in the midtown and downtown areas. For them a typical morning commute can take two hours or more. This long daily grind finally started taking a toll on their bodies and cars. So in order to cut down on their commute, many sold their homes in the suburbs and moved into the city. Some of the intown areas that have seen the most influx of people include the Old Fourth Ward district, Edgewood and Grant Park.

In addition to wanting to cut back on their daily commute times, many former suburbanites moved into the city so they could be closer to grocery stores and restaurants and also have more access to community parks and sidewalks.

Prior to these influx of people, homes in these areas were selling for between forty and seventy five thousand dollars. Now however many of these same homes are selling for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more. While the surge in home prices has been a positive thing for local area businesses and counties, it has been somewhat of a negative thing for long time in-town residents. Many are now being forced out of their homes because they can no longer afford to pay the yearly property taxes. In some cases property taxes have increased by seventy five percent. Which has made the average yearly tax bill range from thirty five hundred to six thousand dollars. This is quite a financial shock and for a person who previously only paid a few hundred dollars a year in property taxes.

Some industry analysts believe that this increase in property taxes will lead to large numbers of long time in-town residents moving to the suburbs where property taxes are cheaper. However for the residents who don�t have cars, moving to the suburbs may not be a good option. In Atlanta, some of the suburban areas have limited bus service but most don�t have any public transportation service at all.
Other cities experiencing in-town growth include Cleveland, Austin and Charlotte.