[quote=Edward Teach;56529229][quote=architect77;56514080]Atlanta's problems come from a sleepy state government and DOT that didn't study, build-out or improve its basic layout of roads for 25 years as they watched the population triple.
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Georgia is hamstrung by legislators across a rural state not wanting to support the metro area. Such absence of loyalty between rural and urban areas doesn't exist in NC, a fiercely supportive populace of everything within the borders.
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I disagree strongly. The situation you ascribe to Georgia is exactly the situation as it exists in NC now.
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As a native of Franklin County, NC. I have never heard anyone from any county across the state express disdain for Raleigh or Charlotte.
From my perspective, I see rural NC generally supportive of the closest city nearby.
They may not want to live in Raleigh or even feel comfortable there, but they recognize it's role as a job center and their only connection to "civilization".
Maybe the transplants are wary of the rural parts, but NC natives in the cities like Raleigh always seem to accept that it's all one state, and predominantly rural as it has always been. It's the sophistication and growth of the cities that's the exception.
And even if you're correct about some discord among NC's counties, it ain't nothing like Georgia.
Outside of Metro Atlanta towns don't want any change, not even for jobs and prosperity, two things that rural NC lusts for unequivocally.
Rural Georgia hates Atlanta because of racism and fear, and even the suburban metro counties want to feed off Atlanta's success without paying a dime in taxes to give back or support.
Atlanta continues to fracture into smaller municipalities rather than reap the efficiencies of consolidation.
Stockbridge even tried to carve out the affluent areas and break apart from poor part so they wouldn't have to support it.
Georgia and NC dovetail each other perfectly.
Everything that's great in each state is awful in the other.
Georgia does big city with people having a big-city mentality very well, people have the same attitude and expectations as in NY and LA.
NC even in the cities emanates small-town mentality, people getting bent out of shape by other people's lives and differences. So it doesn't evoke big-city mentality anywhere close to Atlanta.
NC has a very advanced, set of systems in place for small towns to prosper and resources and state agencies that are a thousand times more developed than Georgia.
Georgia's state agencies, its DOT and metro Atlanta's cooperation and level of servicesare
primitive compared to other states and not in the same galaxy as NC which is a top-tier (best) state in every regard.
Corruption is the norm for all public officials in Georgia and there aren't checks and balances to control it.
NC's state employees, except for a dozen or so famous crooks, are generally trustworthy, and the state's government is a prototype for some Eastern Europe countries to emulate.
Georgia has no people doing oversight of the big picture of how the state is functioning while NC is on the forefront always looking to improve and prosper.
NC has built thousands of miles of new, interstate-quality highways in the past 25 years, while Georgia has built none. Atlanta's layout of interstates hasn't changed since the 1960s.
All of the Southeast cross-state traffic has to come through Atlanta and mix with local traffic. NC would have built 3 loops around Atlanta by now, protecting its logistics and distribution economy, Georgia has done nothing for what truck drivers now say is their 2nd most hated region after NJ.
The DOT in Georgia hasn't ever designated future corridors for future highways and so Atlantans think Expanding highway network and building new freeways means plowing through established neighborhoods slicing them in half like Freedom Parkway was going to do to connect to I-85.
People in NC beg for new highway to accommodate new industry while Atlantans think their inadequate system of roads is normal and all that's possible so they are against any additional ones.
The two states couldn't be more different which gives the Southeast the full gamut of every size town and environment possible.
I live in Atlanta but pretend it's a foreign country like South Africa where what I get from it is worth all the severe tradeoffs but I'm not proud of it as a state like I am about NC.
Atlanta is basically NC's 3 main metros clustered together.
And Atlanta is expected to have 8 million people within 20 years. It is still growing wildly despite all its mobility problems.
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