(The Center Square) – Georgia’s population has exploded in recent years and housing has not kept up with the growth.
According to a report from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, 94 of Georgia’s 159 counties don’t have enough suitable housing.
Fulton County is the state’s largest population-wise and the county seat of Atlanta. It has the most significant housing need, more than 75,000, according to a 2022 study by economists Kevin Corinth and Hugo Dante.
But even smaller counties are experiencing a shortage. Dawson County, tucked in the northeastern part of the state, lacks 1,065 housing units. The county’s population is just shy of 27,000, according to information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The need for housing has obviously been driven in part by Georgia’s population upswing, according to Thomas Perdue, an analyst with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and co-author of the report.
“Georgia’s population has been steadily increasing for about half a century now and since 1980, it’s increased by over $1 million people per decade,” Perdue said in an interview with The Center Square. “And housing production kept for the most part until the Great Recession. What we’ve seen and what we show in our report is that the production of housing has not recovered from 2007 to 2009.”
The report shows that the number of housing units increased by just 7.9% from 2010 to 2020. From 2000 to 2010, the number of units rose by 24.6%, which was close to the increase from 1990 to 2000.
Building permits also decreased from the 2000s to the 2010s, according to the study. Fulton County’s dropped from over 114,000 to 69,403. Taliaferro County, Georgia’s smallest, fell from 19 to 10.
How to spur housing growth is a complex question, according to Perdue.
“It’s important to talk about how regulatory factors drive up cost and what they can mean,” Perdue said. “We can include everything from zoning to the costs of construction workers to the cost of construction materials.”
Perdue said he thinks conversations about housing are becoming a little less fractured.
“I think more people in a more bipartisan way are beginning to look at how supply-side factors drive up the cost of housing and I am hoping that conservation picks up steam,” Perdue said. “Because it’s not really as simple as getting a bill passed during the state session. It’s something that requires different levels of the federal system and stakeholders who do everything from provide materials to write local zoning laws.”
