[L41A]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's a good point. we often compartmentalize "the south" into this one big giant monolithic region because that's what the census bureau does for the US with its four big macro-regions, but the south is so freaking big that an alpha city like atlanta has more than enough room to shine all on its own.

up north, shit got split up into the northeast and the midwest, so we think of those places as their own separate realms, and they are to a degree, and thus we don't have a single issue with seeing NYC as the super-alpha of the northeast and chicago as the super-alpha as the midwest.

but it's important to to remember that the distance between atlanta and dallas/houston is ~700 miles, roughly the same distance as NYC to chicago. atlanta has enough space to be its own super-alpha of its hinterland, texas and parts west be damned.

shit gets MUCH trickier in texas itself where houston and DFW are so neck and neck with each other and only 225 miles away from each other.

I so much agree. "The South" is so diverse in so many ways even within much shorter distances.