Atlanta, the premier city of the Deep South, manages to be both cutting edge and tradition bound at the same time. Imagine walking through a plantation-style home outfitted with every high-tech gadget on the market, and you’ve got a good sense of Atlanta’s dual nature. Major influences range from Ted Turner and Coca-Cola to Martin Luther King Jr. and Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell. Atlanta has risen several times: Its importance as a center of trade was quickly established following its founding in 1837. It was painstakingly rebuilt just 30 years later, after Union Gen. William T. Sherman burned it to the ground. It transformed itself from a segregationist’s haven to a forum for preaching equal opportunity in the 1960s and ’70s, and since then, it has taken its place as an international nerve center of the telecommunications industry. The 1996 Olympic Games gave the city added prestige and a face-lift, with new public artwork, wider sidewalks, improved parks, street signs and lights.