I live in Atlanta. Our mayor opened the pools for free a couple of years ago so that everyone could enjoy them. There were shootings, all kinds of violence and foolishness, and well...that was the end of that. As the city continues to gentrify, there will be a shift, and those pools will get a facelift, and the kids in the pools will look a lot different. But that's neither here nor there.
The YMCA is a $99/month membership fee and then you pay for swim classes on top of that. The classes typically last 6 weeks or so, but you have to keep learning, so you could pay several hundred dollars over some time. With multiple kids, that's a lot for some people.
I currently have my kids in swim classes at a different facility. It's smaller. And they've been learning for about a year. I pay around $100/month for each of them and they go once a week. They both can swim now. At this point, I'm working on them learning better techniques. Better breath control. Strength in their strokes. Things like that. I'll probably give it 2-3 more months, then stop the lessons. And I'll be the only person in the family who can't swim.