Housing recovery sees great divide around Atlanta

South Dekalb County, Georgia

WHEN the new subdivisions were rising everywhere here in the 1990s and early 2000s, with hundreds of fine homes on one-acre (0.4 hectare) lots carved out of the Georgia forest, the price divide between this part of DeKalb County and the northern part wasn't so vast.

Now, a house that looks otherwise identical in South DeKalb, on the edge of Atlanta, might sell for half what it would in North DeKalb. The difference has widened over the years of the housing boom, bust and recovery, and Wayne Early can't explain it.

The people here make good money, he says. They have good jobs. Their homes are built of the same sturdy brick…