[8] Buford Highway is an ethnically diverse, linear community made up of apartment complexes, suburban neighborhoods and shopping centers.

The more than 1,000 immigrant-owned businesses are owned by and patronized by a wide variety of ethnic groups,[9][10] notably Korean, Mexican, Chinese, and Vietnamese, and also Indian, Bangladeshi, Central American, Somali, and Ethiopian.

"[11] The Buford Highway community is home to one of the highest concentration of foreign-born residents in the country, notably Mexican, Central American, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

[12] In 2017, the man who came up with the idea for the BeltLine ring of trails around Atlanta, Ryan Gravel, announced that he would turn his attention to Buford Highway.

The towns of Doraville, Chamblee and Norcross had long been home to a blue collar, largely white, lower middle-class population.

In the 1980s, immigrants settled in the area due to affordable housing, available public transportation, and proximity to construction jobs in growing Gwinnett County.

On July 22, 2010 PBS's Need to Know program portrayed the corridor as an example of a high-pedestrian area in suburban America that fails to meet increased demand for walkability due to changing demographics.

[16] The program noted that in the previous ten years, 30 people had died and an additional 250 were injured while trying to cross Buford Highway, a rate three times higher than any other road in Georgia.