[nspiegelberg]

This. I moved to Silicon Valley from Huntsville, AL (< 1hr drive from KKK birthplace, snake handlers, and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'). I've heard more racist and sexist comments from educated people in SV than I did living in AL. Sure, you have your fair share of stereotypical rednecks in AL, but the vast majority of the population is mostly past that. SV just has a bay segregating them instead of city blocks.

My coworkers expressed disgust that they might have trouble in AL going around the office proudly proclaiming they were atheists. I told them that CA had a similar paradigm too: Fox News.

...That being said: Atlanta is a cautionary tale of how laze-faire central planning doesn't work.