Another Atlanta remains tucked away like a shameful secret.... Here, the American Dream is overshadowed by a dark nightmare…a plethora of pawn shops and shabby signboards. Even the 'kudzu' creeper won't go there for fear of wilting under the glare of stark reality.

The very city that gave the world Martin Luther King, notoriously remains the most racially segregated city in America. A city dotted with church steeples, as also neon-lit strip clubs. Bible belt or Southern sex capital? Gitanjali Shahani investigates

As the plane precariously hovers above the city of Atlanta, I press my nose against the window to catch a glimpse of the much-eulogised Georgia blue sky. Below, a crazy zigzag of highways and houses are almost hidden by thick green foliage. I remember that pilots often call this the Green City…having read up what facts I need know about the flora and fauna of the land that will be my new home for the next five years. Out of nowhere, I recall reading about a leafy plant named 'kudzu', imported from Asia to the American South in the 19th century. Like something out of Jack and the Beanstalk, the creeper spread through Atlanta with wild alacrity, entwining itself around every pillar and pole, its roots clinging to the native Southern soil as though it had always belonged there.

Urban legend aside, I am armed with maps and brochures, offering fact and fiction, history and geography. I have learnt that Atlanta remained shrouded in relative anonymity till the 1996 Olympic Games coaxed its economy into finding a place on the world map of global capital.

But sorting through this overwhelming bulk of research, I am struck by a series of baffling contradictions. Atlanta, I am told, is the liberal haven of the Deep South. Yet, apparently, it is also distinctly Redneck Country, home to gun shows and deer hunters. The very city that gave the world Martin Luther King, notoriously remains the most racially segregated city in America. The streets of Atlanta are dotted with church steeples: Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and other orders. But its streets seem also to be strewn with neon-lit strip clubs that stand alongside S&M stores, retailing in leather and feathers, wigs and whips, all packaged to capitalise on a range of fantasies and budgets. So, is this Bible belt or Southern sex capital?

Determined not to be caught within the city's schism, I seek out the bohemian neighbourhoods that strive to be Atlanta's liberal enclaves. And the city doesn't let me down, readily revealing a quirky facet of its personality. Strolling through Candler Park, I stumble into the Flying Biscuit Café, famed for its fluffy eggs and puffed-up Southern breads, where the young and the restless go through Sunday morning rituals. Over a copy of The New York Times and vegan burgers, I overhear a heavily tattooed couple, with pierced body parts, despair at the Bush administration.

Former Verve copy editor, Gitanjali Shahani, is working on her PhD in English Literature at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and is a fellow of the Vernacular Modernities program at Emory. She lives in an idiosyncratic neighbourhood with her husband, Rohit Chopra.