Atlanta, a city defined by perpetual transformation, has experienced cycles of destruction and renewal throughout its history. From the scars of slavery and racial segregation to becoming the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, Atlanta has continually reinvented itself. In recent years, it has helped reshape Georgia’s political landscape, emerging as a blue beacon amidst a predominantly red South.
In The Makeshift City, Joshua Dudley Greer explores a modern Atlanta caught in the throes of change—a city deeply rooted in its unique history and culture, yet also emblematic of broader American struggles to establish a coherent identity as it evolves.
The photographs in this collection were taken between 2020 and 2024, a period marked by profound upheaval: the COVID-19 pandemic, the growing prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement, battles for reproductive rights, widening income inequality, and the grassroots opposition to the controversial Stop Cop City project. Against this backdrop, Greer set out to document how these economic and political forces manifested in Atlanta’s landscapes, architecture, and communities. Despite the city’s rapid structural transformation during these years, the entrenched systems governing it—shaped by capital interests and the polarized tug-of-war between political parties—remained largely unchanged.
The images in The Makeshift City offer a layered view of Atlanta’s downtown streets, sprawling suburbs, exurbs, film sets, cemeteries, rivers, and construction zones. They reveal a city fractured by relentless development and intersected by sprawling highways, where inhabitants adapt by creating makeshift outdoor gyms, mosques, and offices. The photographs juxtapose sterile new developments with empty lots and decaying mansions, weaving together a narrative that captures the tensions between the city’s past and its present.
“I watched people go about their daily lives despite the challenges that seemed stacked against them,” Greer reflects. “I witnessed resilience, activism, generosity, and joy. But I also saw moments of privilege, apathy, ignorance, and even contempt. My goal was to create images that acknowledge the full complexity of life in one particular place at one particular time. And yet, I know I’ve only scratched the surface. There is so much about Atlanta that I don’t understand, and perhaps never will.”

Long before Atlanta became the bustling metropolis it is today, the land was home to Creek and Cherokee peoples. Founded in 1837 as a transportation hub for the railroad, the city rose from the ashes of destruction twice—first during the Civil War when General William T. Sherman’s troops burned it to the ground, and again after the Great Fire of 1917. This cycle of destruction and rebirth is immortalized in the city’s emblem, the mythical Phoenix.
Atlanta’s urban landscape has been shaped by the legacies of slavery, racial discrimination, and segregation, even as it gained a reputation as “The Black Mecca” for its thriving Black businesses, political leadership, educational institutions, and cultural influence. Today, as Atlanta experiences rapid population growth, extensive real estate development, and ongoing racialized gentrification, it stands at the threshold of a new chapter—one defined by political uncertainty and deep societal challenges.
Greer’s The Makeshift City is both a portrait of Atlanta and a reflection of the broader struggles and complexities that define urban America in the 21st century.