Atlanta

Atlanta burned in 1864 and rebuilt itself from the ashes, which is why the phoenix is still its emblem. More tree canopy covers it than any other big American city: whole neighbourhoods sit under oak and pine, and the towers show through the leaves. Its moral weight is on Auburn Avenue, where Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park gathers the house he was born in, the church he preached in and his tomb. The High Museum of Art, white and curving in its Richard Meier building, is the largest art museum in the Southeast, and the Fox Theatre still fills a Moorish picture palace of 1929. Centennial Olympic Park remains from the 1996 Games, and Coca-Cola was first mixed here in 1886. Atlanta more or less built modern hip-hop, and it eats Southern: fried chicken, grits, greens cooked long. The Appalachian foothills start close, at Amicalola Falls State Park and Tallulah Gorge State Park.