[s_baby]

Atlanta has the 3rd largest LGBT population behind SF/Seattle and is pretty diverse in general. It's the other parts of Georgia that can seem backwards. Same goes for North Carolina. A person from SF would feel at home in Asheville or Raleigh despite everything going on in the news.

[ethbro]

As the snark goes "the worst thing about Atlanta is that it's in Georgia."

The rest of the state also has a proud tradition of hating public transit and attempting to defund MARTA (public rail & bus transit) in various ways. Punchline: no operational funding from state, but state historically limited how MARTA could spend its own sales tax revenue on operations. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Atlanta_Rapid_Tra... and http://saportareport.com/a-marta-story-why-the-state-never-a... for some hilarious political hijinks.

Cobb County (immediately west of the city) also (a) is unwilling to contribute to MARTA, (b) has a terrible traffic problem, (c) is currently burning money to build an overpass over 30 miles of existing interstate to solve the problem forever (see: http://www.ajc.com/news/local/mile-reversible-toll-lane-what... ), & (d) refuses to even consider rail.

[dodders]

Do you have a source for that?

From wikipedia [1] Atlanta has the 3rd largest percentage, but it's 11th for total population. Admittedly those figures are for 2005, but I wouldn't expect Atlanta to make up that much on the top 3 in the last 10 years?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite...

[s_baby]

I meant density not total population.