I always say that you should remake flops, not hits.

The interesting thing about Georgia is, Atlanta is teeming with middle-class black people and black people with money - and yet there is still segregation.

I had been hearing on-the-ground buzz that white folks were moving to places like Bend, Oregon, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and St. George, Utah. That led me to discover through census data that these towns were already extremely white and they were becoming, in most cases, even whiter. Statistics could only tell me so much; in order to get to the spirit and essence of it, I had to immerse myself.

I hope we have American-topias.

I always say that you should remake flops, not hits.

In the pioneer West Whitopias, immigration tended to be the dominant social and racial issue. In Forsyth County, Georgia, immigration is still an issue, but because you have that complicated history of the Trail of Tears and slavery and Jim Crow, the Whitopia has a different flavor.

I concede that segregation can allay social tensions immediately, but it further debilitates us in the long run.