The city serves as the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to 5.8 million people and the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the nation. Atlanta is the seat of Fulton County and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County. Atlanta was founded as a transportation hub at the intersection of two railroad lines in 1837. After being mostly burned to the ground during the American Civil War, the city rose from its ashes to become a national center of commerce and the unofficial capital of the “New South“. During the 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and many other locals playing major roles in the movement’s leadership. In the decades following, the city earned a reputation as “too busy to hate” for the relatively progressive views of its citizens and leaders compared to other cities in the “Deep South“. During the modern era, Atlanta has attained international prominence as a major air transportation hub, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world’s busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998. read more…
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton counties in the Lehigh Valley region of the eastern portion of Pennsylvania. The city had a total population of 75,000, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County, and 19,343 were in Lehigh County. Bethlehem lies in the center of the Lehigh Valley, a region of 731 square miles (1,893 km²) that is home to more than 800,000 people. Together with Allentown and Easton, the Valley embraces the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metropolitan area, including Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon counties within Pennsylvania, and Warren County in the adjacent state of New Jersey. Smaller than Allentown but larger than Easton, Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley’s second most populous city. In turn, this metropolitan area comprises Pennsylvania’s third-largest metropolitan area and the state’s largest and most populous contribution to the greater New York City metropolitan area. read more…
