They wish they were in Dixie (Atlanta, Savannah: home, neighbourhoods, high school) - Georgia (GA) - City-Data Forum

Airforceguy · 04-10-2015, 08:39 AM

Long read, but pretty interesting....

Quote:

Atlanta exemplifies both the virtues and the failings of the South. Its 5.5m residents live near the world’s busiest airport. Several local firms are world-class: Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola, UPS. The city also has more black businesses and millionaires than any other in America. Rap stars such as Ludacris and Drake have made its nightlife famous.

On the minus side, it is still racially divided. Traditionally black neighbourhoods, such as the Old Fourth Ward (where Martin Luther King once lived) are slowly growing more mixed, as yuppies move in. But parts of Atlanta are almost 100% African-American, and Buckhead, a wealthy area, is 79% white.

Atlanta is also America’s most unequal city, according to the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. Households at the 95th percentile make 19 times as much money as those at the 20th. This gap correlates with race: black families in Atlanta are almost three times as likely to be poor as white ones. And Atlantans are not very socially mobile. Those born into the poorest quintile have only a 4.5% chance of making it to the top quintile. By comparison, those born at the bottom in San Jose, California have a 12.9% chance of working all the way up, much like babies born into similar circumstances in Canada or Denmark.

Poor public transport makes it harder for Atlanta’s citizens to find new jobs. Commuting by car is a pain: citizens spend, on average, 50 hours a year sitting in traffic jams. And between 2000 and 2012 the number of jobs within an easy commuting distance of home dropped by 14.8% according to Brookings, compared with 7% across the nation.

A teacher at a black high school near Atlanta’s airport says her pupils never treat her differently for being white. Her youth has attracted more attention: one cheeky pupil once called her “a stupid-ass little girl”. Some of her pupils lack motivation, she frets. Yet the only way to overcome the racism they will encounter in the outside world, she argues, is “to stop fulfilling stereotypes and get an education.”

The South