COLUMBUS, Ga. — The cost of rent for studio apartments in the Fountain City has absolutely skyrocketed in the last two years, as the number of evictions in the city doubled and the city’s population declined over the same time period.

We analyzed and charted eight years of median rent data in Columbus, by month, organized by apartment size. We then cross-referenced that data with the city’s rate of evictions and its total population.

Here’s what the data showed. 

SKYROCKETING RENT

From 2015 to 2020, the median cost of rent for a studio apartment in Columbus bounced around roughly the $700-$800 range. Those rents then skyrocketed from 2020-2023, causing the median rent for a studio apartment in Columbus to spike to an astronomical $1300 per month.

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While the median rents of single and multi-bedroom apartments rose slightly as well, their increases remained gradual and within their trend patterns. Four-bedroom rentals, for example, remained relatively flat between $1,300-$1,400 per month from Jan. 2015 all the way to Jan. 2023. 

Studio apartments, on the other hand, broke trend from 2020-2021 and shot up to the moon, now costing just as much as their larger four-bedroom counterparts.

EVICTIONS 

During the same time period, the number of evictions in the Fountain City also roughly doubled. 

Before studio rent began increasing, the number of evictions in Columbus was just 668 in 2020.

As the rent of studio apartments began to skyrocket, evictions shot up as well. Last year, in 2022, a total of 1,202 Columbus renters were evicted from their homes.

While the strong correlation between evictions and studio apartment rent does not imply causality, it does imply that there is — at the minimum — an extraneous variable linking the two. Put another way: given that those who are evicted are not likely to be the same people able to afford a $1,300 studio loft, it suggests the city’s increased supply of “luxury lofts” is connected to it. 

The reason why is ironically the same reason why rent control is mathematically incapable of solving the problem. 

As higher-end apartments begin to be developed in a given area, the overall cost of living tends to increase throughout the area as a whole. As a result, lower-income residents have fewer spare dollars to meet their increased living expenses; poverty increases, and evictions rise. In turn, there are fewer people to support that artificially-created higher cost of living. It is a vicious cycle that ironically creates more poverty than it erroneously sought to subsidize.

We’ll cover more on this dynamic in a separate article and link it here once it’s published.

POPULATION DECLINE

The city’s recent population decline also correlates with its increased evictions and skyrocketing studio apartment rent. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Columbus had a total of 206,922 residents in 2020. By 2021, that number had decreased to 205,617; a decrease of 1,305 people, or 0.63%. 

That one-year population decrease alone is greater than the city’s 1,202 evictions from 2020-2022. Following that rate of population decline would give Columbus an estimated 2022 population of 204,320 people, or a total loss of 2,602 residents from 2020-2022; double the number of people evicted over the same time frame. 

The city’s population is therefore decreasing at a faster rate than evictions are occurring, which indicates that evictions alone aren’t the cause of the population decline; more people are simply choosing to leave the city altogether than just those who are evicted. 

ADDITIONAL UNDESIRED EFFECTS

The fact that the city’s population decline is greater than its number of evictions also indicates that the city is failing to attract and retain the “talented and educated people” it seeks to build its workforce, as staffing continues to be a considerable concern for both the city’s government and Columbus as a whole.

Poverty in the Fountain City has also continued to rise over the same time period, from 18.2% in 2019 to an insane 22% in 2022. 

Homelessness also stopped decreasing in 2021 and rose for the first time in years, confirmed by a trend-reversing spike of more than a 13.5% increase from 2022 to 2023. 

A DECISIVE JUNCTION

Perhaps city officials ought to consider the undesired effects of continuously outpacing their city’s value proposition through the development of “luxury lofts” before their ever-decreasing workforce dwindles down to a blithering pulp of ironically-increased inner-city impoverishment.

The erroneous argument of the falsehood of “rent control” isn’t the answer, either — though that’s a story for another day. 

THE FIX

The solution, as abstract as it may seem, is a simple one — though the simple things are often the most complicated. The concept of the required solution can be encapsulated in a quote of ancient wisdom that has stood the sands of time since the sixth century B.C.:

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” — Lao Tzu. 

We must develop people instead of buildings — provide leadership — and their ingenuity just might surprise us. We cannot  sell the product before we’ve put in the leadership required to build it; it cannot be bought, faked, nor artificially engineered. It must be built and sustained by the people of the city itself. 

We cannot cheat the laws of economics. There are no shortcuts to success; only quicker routes to failure. 

We must lead.

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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