Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is confident his successes during his time in the mayor’s office will earn him another term when he runs for reelection this year.
When Dickens took office in 2022, the city faced a variety of threats, including an effort by some residents in Buckhead to split from Atlanta and soaring crime numbers on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I take a long view of these past three years,” Dickens said during an editorial board interview at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Midtown office Monday. “This point in time is a lot more comfortable as mayor — the city is stabilized.”
“The group project worked,” he said, referencing a long-standing campaign promise to bring unity to the city. “And we need to get to 2030 — I need four more years — for you to see it all take place.”
Dickens’ remarks came during a sweeping interview with reporters and editors at the AJC, touching on topics ranging from the city’s relationship with President Donald Trump’s administration and continued pushback against the city’s recently opened public safety training center, to the tragic death of a unhoused Atlantan during a recent encampment clearing and whether the Beltline will have transit in its future.
As a council member, Dickens emerged from a crowded 2021 mayoral race and inched past former Mayor Kasim Reed into a runoff against City Council President Felicia Moore that he won with 64% of the vote — the largest margin for an open mayor’s race since 1993.
A majority of his first years in office were dominated by controversy over Atlanta’s public safety training center, the 85-acre facility in unincorporated DeKalb County that previous city leaders promised would bring down crime. While a referendum to overturn the project is still in legal limbo, Dickens said he’s hoping attitudes toward the facility change after residents see its impact.
“Having a public safety training center is the right thing to do,” he said. “Having (officers) be trained, we were losing police officers through attrition, we were less safe than we are now — so we did the right thing.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Atlanta has seen a significant drop in violent crime since Dickens took office. In 2023, homicides decreased by a record 21%, and then another 6% in 2024. The public safety successes set up the city to host a series of massive events scheduled within the next few years.
The 2026 World Cup alone is expected to draw 300,000 visitors that will flood downtown streets and strain the city’s infrastructure. Atlanta’s water and sewer system, which dates back to the 1860s, is set to undergo massive improvements, while capital projects like transportation expansions have struggled to get off the ground.
Hosting major events isn’t anything new, Dickens pointed out, and on any given weekend Atlanta is likely juggling multiple at a time. Last year, the presidential debate hosted by CNN and a Copa América soccer match clogged city streets on the same day.
“We managed protests, we managed debate, we managed a major soccer event — we’re getting better and better at these things,” the mayor said. “From emergency preparedness and event management — the transportation safety, security — I think we’re going to be good.”
Atlanta City Council OK’d $120 million in infrastructure bonds to give downtown a face-lift ahead of the World Cup coming to town next year. And the mayor wants local businesses to benefit financially from the crush of visitors through a new initiative called “Showcase Atlanta.”
But the city has a history of struggling to execute capital projects. A recent audit of the $750 million Moving Atlanta Forward infrastructure package, approved by voters in 2022, showed less than 10% of project funds have been spent so far.
“I’m frustrated too. I live on these roads. It’s reasonable for everybody to be frustrated,” the mayor said of the city’s slow project rollout. “We’re trying to deal with it and resolve all the challenges of getting these big projects done.”
Thousands of residents were left without water for nearly a week after a series of severe water main breaks in May spotlighted the need to improve the city’s systems. It’s a task that the Biden administration was ready to provide assistance.
But the future of federal and local partnerships is uncertain after Trump’s recent election. During his first few weeks in office, the Republican cut off federal grant funding to states, leaving city leaders like Dickens wondering what will be the full impact of his sweeping changes.
Atlanta’s mayor went from having a direct line of communication with the White House to none at all.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
“The federal government is powerful. It’s important. It’s big. Our city and other cities have so many connections to it,” Dickens said Monday. “It’s definitely concerning.”
“Atlanta is important — the world’s busiest airport, the sixth-largest metropolitan area,” said the mayor, describing his conversations with the new administration. “Please remember the things that you do affect us. It’s nerve-wracking for sure.”
The federal funding freeze also sent Atlanta’s housing nonprofits — which rely heavily on grants from Washington, D.C. — into a spiral. Agencies like Atlanta Housing and Partners for Home couldn’t access the funding channels they use to pay people’s rents and other operational costs until the new policy was rescinded after a court order.
It added a new challenge to Dickens’ lofty affordable housing goals and efforts to reduce the city’s unhoused population. He’s been praised for innovative projects like The Melody, a rapid rehousing community made of shipping containers downtown, but also faced significant backlash for encampment clearings.
Last month, unhoused Atlantan Cornelius Taylor died during a city encampment clearing on Old Wheat Street when a public works vehicle ran over his tent while Taylor was still inside. The mayor said the encampment clearings will continue but with new safety policies in place.
“It’s a moral thing to me,” Dickens said. “It’s a very important thing that we take care of those that are experiencing homelessness and get them out of homelessness.”
“We’re trying to build our way out of it by building housing units — we know we can’t build fast enough,” he added.
At the same time as he looks to tackle the long-term issue of housing, residents wonder about the future of transit in the city plagued by traffic jams and crumbling sidewalks.
On Monday, Dickens reaffirmed his support for extending the Atlanta Streetcar alongside the Eastside Beltline trail, a project backed by voters in 2017 but which is behind schedule and went conspicuously unmentioned during last month’s State of MARTA address.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
“We’ve already started toward that,” Dickens said. “I think we don’t want to waste those dollars, so we should continue to move forward with that.”
But Dickens also said he’s waiting on several reports expected this month that will offer suggestions on other options, including a crosstown streetcar route running from west to east.
Dickens said nearly every type of transit — he floated the idea of self-driving pods, gondolas, rapid bus routes, shuttles, streetcars and light rail — is under consideration for parts of the 22-mile Beltline that will wrap around the city once complete.
“I’m still a fan of rail on the Beltline,” the mayor said. “I have been from the beginning.”
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