In his State of the City address, the mayor urged businesses to `say yes’ and help invest in underserved areas.
Mayor Andre Dickens gives the annual State of the City address at Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is dedicating his second term in office to fighting inequality across the city through a lofty proposal that would pour more than $5 billion in tax revenue toward neighborhood revitalization — if he can win support for extending Atlanta’s eight tax allocation districts.
But at his State of the City address, the mayor said City Hall needs help from the business community to create lasting change in the neighborhoods that need it most.
The swanky, annual event held at the Woodruff Arts Center brings some of Atlanta’s most prominent business and community leaders to the same room to hear directly from the mayor. And on Wednesday, he asked them for help.
“When we call to ask for an affordable housing development in your neighborhood, we need you to say ‘yes’ to the group project,” Dickens said. “And when we call you to expand your business into those neighborhoods, we need you to say ‘yes’ to the group project.”
“You’ve answered the call before,” he added. “I know you’ll answer it again.”
Coined the “Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative,” the proposal hinges on extending all eight of the city’s tax allocation districts, also known as TADs, in which property tax revenue growth is allocated to pay for infrastructure within the district’s boundaries. Dickens wants to extend the TADS beyond 2050, long after most are set to expire in 2030.
He will need support from the Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta School District and Fulton County government to realize the full $5 billion in revenue from the extensions.
Both county and school system officials have expressed concern about handing over a portion of their tax revenue as they face their own economic challenges. Without their OK, the city would generate about $1.4 billion over the next 30 years from extending the TADs.
“Our most powerful tool is one we already have: our tax allocation districts,” he said. “The momentum is here. The willpower is here. We need to capture that energy and put our TADs to work now.”
And local investment is more important than ever.
Mayor Andre Dickens gives the annual State of the City address at Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)
Atlanta has lost tens of millions of dollars in federal funding since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. And it faces the prospect of losing even more if the city challenges a Trump administration order looking to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — a hallmark of Atlanta’s history since the 1970s.
That means fewer resources to meet the lofty goals he set for his administration when he took office in 2022, like creating or preserving 20,000 units of affordable housing by 2030 and transitioning the city entirely to clean energy by 2035.
“Their priorities have changed and the support has been removed,” Dickens said of the federal government during his 20-minute speech. “They’ve abandoned the work and removed themselves from the group project — and some folks seem ready to join them.
“We are at a moral crossroads. The work is harder now. Everything is more expensive now. Federal funding support has dried up. So that means, we have to do more on our own.”
Dickens has been pushing his neighborhood reinvestment plan since September.
City officials point to stark statistical differences in areas like literacy, incarceration and homeownership rates among people in the south and west sides of Atlanta, compared to more affluent, northern neighborhoods.
Residents in those historically underserved areas also have less access to jobs, transit and fresh food.
His list of neighborhood reinvestment priority projects, first reported on by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, comes with a total $14.7 billion price tag, and includes $130 million toward the ambitious Stitch project that would cap Atlanta’s downtown connector with a city park, and $100 million for a new hospital campus currently under negotiation.
The money would also help fund four new MARTA stations — announced by Dickens at his annual address in 2024 — that would come with at a cost of $730 million. It would also earmark $628 million toward launching Beltline rail on the south side of the city, which is a major change from original Beltline rail plans that were slated to begin on the Eastside trail.
“Let me be clear: for you to join in the celebration of Atlanta’s success I expect you to show up for the work,” he urged the crowd Wednesday. “And our work begins in the neighborhoods.”
As Dickens urged the business community to step up, a small crowd of protesters gathered to counter the mayor’s address with skepticism about corporate involvement in this summer’s FIFA World Cup, which will bring a host of soccer games to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in June and July.
Organized by a coalition of five local watchdog groups, the protest criticized the city’s approach to the World Cup’s economic strategy, while inside the mayor spoke to an invitation-only crowd that consisted largely of the city’s corporate elite.
Specifically, their concerns were succinctly flashed on a billboard that rolled through streets outside the Woodruff Center: “Mayor Dickens: Who is winning the World Cup?”
A small group of protesters gathers outside of Woodruff Arts Center as Mayor Andre Dickens delivers the State of the City address Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (Ben Gray for the AJC)
Riley Bunch is a reporter on the local government team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covering Atlanta City Hall. She covers the mayor and Atlanta City Council while also keeping an eye on the city’s diverse neighborhoods.
