Press Releases

Mayor Andre Dickens’ 2026 State of the City Address on March 18, 2026

ATLANTA—Below, find Mayor Andre Dickens 2026 State of the City address remarks as prepared. You can also view the entire program here.

Good evening Atlanta!

It’s wonderful to be back for the third straight year here at the beautiful Atlanta Symphony Hall. Let’s give a warm thank you to Hala Moddelmog and the Woodruff Arts Center for their hospitality.

And a generous thank you to Coca-Cola and the Atlanta Committee for Progress for supporting this event every year.

And to the world’s greatest City Council and the newest Atlanta City Council President, Marci Collier Overstreet; would you all please stand?

Thank you; I am honored to start another four-year term alongside you.

To my predecessors, the former Mayors of Atlanta, thank you for your continued service to the City. Thank you!

And I always love to have my family and friends here, thank you for your love and support.

To everyone here: elected officials, appointees, judges, clergy, and the great citizens of Atlanta, thank you for being here and welcome to the 2026 State of the City Address!

For the past four years, we have proven what we can do. We have invested in our people and our neighborhoods. And the group project has delivered results.

We’ve been named a Top 5 city for affordable housing production after building over 13,000 affordable housing units!

We opened over 500 rapid housing units and provided services and care to those experiencing homelessness.

We found jobs for over 20,000 young people and made historic investments in childhood education and youth programming.

Graduation rates are the highest they’ve ever been in the City’s history!

We’ve brought down crime. Homicides: down 40%. Shootings: down 30%.

And overall violent crime is down!

We’ve opened new fire stations and invested in new fire equipment.

We’ve spent $150 million on parks and greenspaces.

We’ve made the basic operations of government work better for you.

We are picking up trash on time, paving our sidewalks and roads, improving our water system, adding bike lanes and trails, including the world-famous Atlanta Beltline.

We’ve supported our artists, film productions, nightlife, international delegations, major corporations, labor unions, and small businesses from Cascade to Downtown and beyond.

We’ve achieved triple-A bond ratings and raised the City’s minimum wage.

And because of all that, I can, without a doubt, report to you that the State of our City is strong!

And the source of that strength? It’s the Atlanta Group Project!

One of the things I’m most proud of is that other cities are looking to duplicate our success; they’re looking to Atlanta as the blueprint of how to do this work.

And the first thing I tell them is that our success is because of the group project.

Our model for affordable housing through the Housing Strike Force is being duplicated. People come to us to find out how we make our rapid housing projects successful.

 It’s the Group Project.

Mayors of other progressive cities ask me how they too can open a municipal grocery store. They see how our strategic partnerships produced the Azalea Market.

I tell them, that’s our Group Project.

I get asked about Year of the Youth; I get asked how we brought down crime; and the same answer: we do it as a Group Project!

And when other cities want to know how to host major events, they look to Atlanta. The BIG Group Project.

In just 89 days, the world is coming to Atlanta. Are you ready for the World Cup?!

We’re excited to be on the world stage once again as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. And thanks to the Group Project, Atlanta is ready. Events like the World Cup demand collaboration and partnership. The City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Sports Council, MARTA, the Georgia World Congress Center, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, State and Regional partners, Showcase Atlanta, and others have worked in tandem so that we are ready to welcome the world.

Now, I know you have all heard these successes before, but I can’t help but brag about our great city. We poured our heart into this work.

I hope you don’t think we’re gonna stop now.

Because there is more work to be done. There are more people to serve.

But I gotta tell y’all something, we are at a moral crossroads.

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.

That means it’s harder to get new affordable housing developments across the finish line and it’s harder to upgrade our infrastructure.

We are at a moral crossroads.

We’re the economic capital of the South, yet inequality is still a prevailing force in Atlanta. Too many people have their opportunities defined by Which Atlanta they were born into.

Too many people are still struggling to make ends meet. Too many neighborhoods have been left behind in our City’s success.

I have made it clear which path I’m on, and it’s not the one where I coast through the next four years preparing for life after City Hall.

My path is the one where we put in the work, where we develop the callouses on our hands and feet as proof of our labor, where we do not rest until our work is done.

The vision is clear.

The goals are defined.

And a resounding majority of the people voted to support our vision when they re-elected me with more than 85% of the vote!

But the national landscape has changed since I was first elected. Their priorities have changed, and the support has been removed. They’ve abandoned the work, and removed themselves from the group project.

And…. some folks seem ready to join them.

Maybe they think the job is finished.

Maybe they think they did enough.

Or maybe, they never believed in the vision in the first place.

We are indeed at a moral crossroads, in our city and in our country.

But let me be clear: for you to join in the celebration of Atlanta’s success, I expect you to show up for the work.

Let me say it again, for you to join in the celebration of Atlanta’s success, I expect you to show up for the work.

And our work, begins in the neighborhoods.

Last year, we officially launched the Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative. This is a whole of government strategy to shift our public system toward a focus on residents’ needs. We believe that our city is at its best when we have whole, healthy, thriving, and connected neighborhoods.

This isn’t new work. We’ve done this work for the past four years. But centering it, under a single initiative, allows us to focus our efforts and direct the whole of government toward the same north star: to make Atlanta the best place in the country to thrive and raise every child.

The points on our north star are clear:

Affordable Housing.

Investments in neighborhoods and community.

Investments in our youth.

Investments in safety – through both policing and non-policing strategies.

And doing it all with ethical and efficient government.

The Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative is a strategy to focus our efforts and create compounding impact for the entire city.

We have started our work in several key neighborhoods and economic corridors. These neighborhoods have historically endured environmental and systemic challenges and significant disinvestment. And as a result, they are often the most impacted by violence and blight.

Imagine for a moment, two children, born in two different parts of the city.

One has access to fresh food, health care, education, greenspaces, and public transportation.

The other lives in a neighborhood where the closest place for groceries is a dollar store, there’s little access to public transit, and their rent is too high.

These two children may be separated by less than 5 miles, but their lifespans can be separated by as much as 20 years.

Last year, in our NRI neighborhoods, over one-quarter of APS students ended the year in a different school than they started.

No one should be taking two busses in the Atlanta heat to get fresh groceries, yet 60% of residents in those neighborhoods did not have easy access to a quality grocery store.

Hundreds of seniors risked displacement, and 9,000 people faced eviction.

And the most daunting statistic, every year 1200 children were born with a life expectancy 20 years lower than it is in other parts of the city.

It matters where we put our parks and hospitals. It matters where we build new public transit. It matters where we spend our money.

But none of this happens without focus, funding, and resources.

If we are serious about righting these historic wrongs; about lifting up these communities; about moving Atlanta forward together; then we must be honest about the true scale of this challenge.

Think about this, there is no hospital south of I-20 – that’s chaos, not community.

Addressing these inequities will take billions of dollars in public and private investment.

We’ve explored every resource and we intend to use every tool available to us. But our most powerful tool is one we already have: our Tax Allocation Districts or TADs.

Extending our existing TADs to support the broader NRI strategy could generate more than $5 billion to support citywide investments. The momentum is here. The willpower is here. We need to capture that energy and extend the TADs now!

Some people suggest that we slow things down and start from scratch. This often comes from those who have already benefited from the TADs. Their neighborhoods have good schools and good grocery stores, and their property values have already gone up.

Every delay means people are missing out on vital investments. The details matter, but we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That mindset has led to inaction for far too long.

The time to act is NOW.

I’ve asked a lot of the group project, and I want to thank each of you who have contributed. You’ve invested your money, your time, and your support. We wouldn’t be this far without all of us coming together and moving in the same direction. Again, I say thank you.

So, where do we go from here?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. explored this question in his final book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

Arguably the biggest group project of the last 100 years was the long, hard fight of the civil rights movement. People of all creeds and colors came together to achieve the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

And when Dr. King looked around, he saw that people thought the job was finished. But poverty, inequality, and racism persisted. The fight raged on for fair wages and decent housing and equality.

In that moment, Dr. King called for a revolution of values; a reorientation of society away from individualism and materialism toward solidarity and a recognition of our shared humanity.

Nearly sixty years later, we are, unfortunately, still hoping for that revolution, and individualism and materialism are being preached from the highest levels of government.

The chaos of inequality persists here in Atlanta.

But we can determine our own fate. We can choose to be a community where we invest in those with the greatest need; where everyone has an opportunity to succeed; and where we recognize our shared humanity.

Our mission is to fight back the chaos, and fight for our community.

I know my choice. I choose Atlanta every time. I choose community. I choose the group project.

But I need you to join us today. I need you to join us tomorrow. I need you to join us every day for the next four years.

Because every day that we wait, another parent must decide between fresh food on the table or paying for the doctor.

Every day we wait, another person is laid off from their job and risks eviction.

And every day we wait, more babies are born into a place where their zip code determines their life expectancy. Where their neighborhood too often determines their destiny.

Every neighborhood deserves safe streets, good schools, and access to public transportation.

So when we call to ask for an affordable housing development in your neighborhood, we need you to say yes to the group project.

And when we call to ask you to reach out to your elected officials to support the resources we need, we need you to say yes to the group project.

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. I know you’ll answer it again.

Because, ALL of Atlanta deserves the best of Atlanta.

God bless you and God bless the City of Atlanta.

[END]

Find the entire program at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4IP0SOVBlg

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For more information about the City of Atlanta, please visit www.atlantaga.gov or watch City Channel 26. Follow the City of Atlanta on Facebook and Twitter @CityofAtlanta.