Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Best Paper Award Winners

Dr. Colleen Hammelman and PhD Candidate Dylan Turner, with co-author Dr. Cathy Liu from Georgia State University, were named Second-Place Winner for the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning’s 2024 Best Paper Award in Planning & Entrepreneurship for their paper, Leave or Stay? The Small Business Landscape along Buford Highway. The paper examines immigrant retail patterns on the international corridor of Buford Highway in metropolitan Atlanta in order to better understand the challenges immigrant businesses face from development pressures.

Through analysis of data regarding in/out business migration patterns as well as in-depth key informant interviews and discourse analysis of economic development policies, we found that the interethnic concentration of businesses, long-standing demand, and cultural cache of the international retail corridor of Buford Highway has provided for a strikingly stable retail landscape despite changing population demographics and economic challenges (including during the pandemic). These findings demonstrate the continued possibility for place-based planning strategies to fortify immigrant small businesses against development pressures.

The paper will be presented at the upcoming ACSP conference in Seattle and will be published soon. See https://www.acsp.org/news/683832/Kauffman-Foundation-2024-Best-Paper-Award-in-Planning–Entrepreneurship.htm for more information.