As a southerner who has moved West, I contend that the South needs to fix a huge amount of its culture before there will be the thriving mix of industry and cre

As a southerner who has moved West, I contend that the South needs to fix a huge amount of its culture before there will be the thriving mix of industry and creativity you can find in cities like SF, Seattle, and Boston. Let's not forget that the south has not been the engine of the American economy since slavery was (de jure) abolished. The South's peculiar mix of dominionism and right-wing fervor makes strange bedfellows of fundamentalists and rapacious capitalists. Low taxes starve infrastructure and the social safety net, and those are what drives stability. Without stability, entrepreneurialism cannot happen. Without entrepreneurialism, the closest you get are places like Austin and RTP: big, established companies moving people for tax reasons that does nothing to foster innovation. Atlanta really should be the next big tech hub, but it won't be so long as the regressive politics and systemic racism of the south remain unaddressed. Charlotte would be great except that things like HB2 make the prospect of moving to NC a complete nonstarter for many in the already-marginalized LGBTQ population. The list goes on.