The U.S. Department of Transportation's funding plans could mean Atlanta and other large Georgia cities receive "substantially" less cash per capita for projects, according to an Urban Institute analysis.
Catch up quick: This past week, newly installed transportation secretary Sean Duffy said the agency should prioritize "communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average" for the highly competitive grants and loans programs.
Zoom in:According to an Urban Institute analysis, that criteria could likely metro Atlanta suburbs and exurbs — areas which would likely favor highway and major roadway widening or construction.
The big picture: "We find that the winners of such a policy would be higher-income areas and those with larger white populations," Yonah Freemark and Lindiwe Rennert, the study's authors, write.
"As such, the policy would reinforce many of the nation's existing demographic inequities and fail to support the U.S. residents most in need of expanded transportation investment."
