Bureau of Planning records document the efforts of the City of Atlanta government and Metropolitan Planning Comnmission (later named Atlanta Regional Commission) to peacefully integrate Atlanta neighborhoods in the 1950s and 1960s as African Americans sought to purchase homes in neighborhoods occupied by white residents. In 1952, Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield set up the West Side Mutual Development Committee (WSMDC), a bi-racial citizens committee that worked with civic groups, real estate agents and others to mediate racial housing disputes throughout the city. Despite its name, the WSMDC worked in neighborhoods throughout Atlanta, not just those on the west side of the city.

The records include a vast amount of correspondence from Robert C. Stuart (1918-) of the Metropolitan Planning Commission who acted as a technical advisor to the WSMDC. Other correspondents include Mayor Hartsfield, city officials, and residents of Atlanta. Among the records are "neighborhood improvement files" which contain correspondence, reports, news clippings and other materials that document racial transition efforts in Adamsville, Adair Park, Collier Hights, Grove Park, Kirkwood, Moreland Heights and other areas. Of particular interest are dozens of surveys completed by white residents of Kirkwood and Collier Heights on whether they wish to sell their homes to Black families. The records also include subject files on topics related to housing, urban renewal, crime, and school desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. The records contain maps of the Atlanta neighborhoods of Thomasville, Lightning, and Bedford Pine, as well as maps illustrating a proposed highway for the west side of the city.

Other materials dating from the 1930s through the 1950s document the city's plans for a proposed ampitheater in Piedmont Park, a property extension for Oakland Cemetery, a proposed Veterans Administration hospital, land use studies, post-war growth plans, and transportation and parking plans. Other records produced in the 1970s include Neighborhood Planning Units news (NPU notes) which include updates on happenings in Atlanta neighborhoods, as well as printed materials.