Between 2000 and 2013, poverty in Atlanta’s suburbs had the highest rate of change of any metro region of its size.
John Lewis 5th Congressional District 
Example of Lewis caring for his district: Abandoned houses on English Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, August 23, 2012. Photograph by Keizers. Courtesy of Keizers, CC BY-SA. Atlanta's black population lives principally in the region's suburbs, leading to a rise in abandoned properties in historically black neighborhoods in the city's center. 
It’s not for nothing that “The Walking Dead” used portions of the Atlanta metro area as its setting for the post-apocalypse.
And this repulsive “Civil Rights icon”(who looks disturbingly like “The Creature From The Black Lagoon”)bears responsibility for the decay.