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Comment by patrickg-zill | Hacker News Reader

Are you speaking from experience, or your own prejudice?

How about this - many Asians settle in CA because it means they are only a plane trip away from relatives in Asia.

As an example: JFK to Manila means a travel time of 24 hours due to 1 or 2 stops; LAX or SFO to Manila if going direct is 12 hours.

Nothing to do whatsoever with "racism and intolerance".

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First of all, painting the entire South with a single brush reeks of bias. Atlanta is not racist. I have lived here for 5 years and as an Indian American and I am yet to experience a single experience of racism. This has to be plain luck because in the few months that I lived in NYC, I experienced some.

Seriously, visit Atlanta, see how many African Americans, Asians, Indians and yes, gay people lead a happy life very much free from pain caused by bias over here.

If you really want to fight racism, please at least praise the lack of bias and openness in a community when you see it. Painting these with the same brush and giving them no credit for their openness guarantees that they will die away.

There are many more Asians in the Northeast, though, and they are on the same coast as some of these Southern states.

I am speaking from the experience of having lived in Ohio, North Carolina, and San Francisco. The proximity to Asia is definitely another factor, but there is definitely at least a perception of racism in the South that discourages Asian and foreigners from moving there.

Even though you are wrong, and speak from inexperience and prejudice, your opinion does point out something important: people like you have a prejudice against Atlanta as 'backwards' because it is in a region with different social problems than you are used to.

I wouldn't say that Atlanta is backwards. I am only confident of saying that a perception of unfriendliness to Asians and foreign-born people prevents many people from those groups from moving there.

So, I'm open to being proven wrong here. And I'm having a hard time finding any hard data either for or against this. Is there really a perception among Asians and foreigners that Atlanta is an unfriendly place?

The closest thing I can find to data is demographics. But the size of a population is only somewhat correlated to tolerance. I can find some polls but they don't have much data. Any other thoughts?

polls: http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-vs-city/572890-what-best...

http://goldsea.com/PAC/index.php?showtopic=278

As an Asian who has lived in Atlanta for 7 years, I can definitely tell you that it's not friendly to live there as an Asian. Well, it's better than some places, but it's definitely crappy compared to the Bay Area or Boston.

Its only 6-8 hours from JFK to LAX. Wheres the extra 4-6 hours come from?

There are stop overs and other accumulated delays. In some cases (depending on the route you end up with) there are additional security checkpoints.

For instance, JFK to Nagoya (Japan) to Manila means arriving early at JFK, going through security, then flying to Nagoya, where you again have to go through security and then wait 2-3 hours, then on to Manila. Remember, delays accumulate.

There are direct flights from ATL to Beijing and Mumbai now. That could definitely help.

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