[echelon]

Come to Atlanta!

There are satellite offices for many of the major tech companies (some of them not so "satellite" at 200ish engineers).

The cost of living is cheap, it's not cold in the summer, and there's so much culture. Atlanta is in a forest, so if you like outdoors stuff, you'd be in the right place.

[aceperry]

What's the political situation like there? I hear about things like voter suppression by the Republicans and other shenanigans in those states.

[echelon]

The city and (most) of the suburbs are very blue. Atlanta itself is rated as one of the most LGBT-friendly cities in the country [1].

Unfortunately, the state is still red due to the population living outside of the MSA. The city and the suburbs are resoundingly blue, though [2].

The governor pulled some very shady voter suppression tactics in the last election. [3, 4] They're afraid, and they know their time is short.

We need more blue voters. We're close to turning the state, and that would be a huge victory.

[1] https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/top-places-for-lgbtq-fol...

[2] https://www.ajc.com/atlanta-neighborhood-2016-presidential-e...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/30/did-racia...

[4] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/6/18253689/vo...

[RhysU]

Why are the red suburbs red?

[chrisco255]

The reason why the cost of living is sane in Republican states is because they don't place undue restrictions on housing supply. You might acknowledge that each political party has significant trade-offs with the policies they support, and move to a red state with that in mind.

[illumin8]

Factually inaccurate. The reason the cost of living is lower in red states is simply due to location. People desire to live in coastal cities like NY, SF, LA, Seattle, etc.

Supply and demand drive prices. Do you think real estate is expensive on the upper east side in Manhattan because of an undue restriction on housing supply? Or is it just because many people want to live and work in NYC?

[erik_seaberg]

I don't know much about Manhattan, but SF is not allowing supply to meet the demand being signaled by absurd prices. Density in the neighborhoods is very low and construction that would increase it is almost never approved.

[illumin8]

The SF bay area is an outlier, and yes, I agree about the restriction of supply problems we face (I live here). But to simply paint all blue states as similar to SF is inaccurate.

[pochamago]

Doesn't Houston disprove this? Or Tokyo? Supply and demand are effected by the local regulations in place.

[chrisco255]

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/these-are...

The fastest growing region in the United States is the South. Of the top 10 fastest growing states in 2019...only 2 of them voted blue in 2016. California is growing at its slowest rate in history:

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-population-grow...

Yes, supply and demand drive prices, but if you artificially constrict supply like California does with absurdly restrictive zoning laws and inflexible housing policies that only act to protect inflationary ponzi scheme, then you get the present-day California real estate market bubble.

[ahelwer]

Sadly no mountains (I am actually moving to Atlanta in a month, for other reasons). Decent rock climbing though. And great fruit selection.

[echelon]

We do have mountains!

We're also only an hour and a half from Chattanooga, TN, which has amazing mountain climbing.