Atlanta: First impressions

I walked out of the subway (called MARTA) after getting into Atlanta at about 11 p.m. and, almost immediately, three people asked me for money. And they were willing to help me out by showing me the way to the hostel where I had booked a room.

Two notes:
a) I had almost no money (one American dollar, five Canadian dollars)
b) These people clearly had never heard of the hostel ("You mean hotel?")

So one guy, Tyrone, insisted that he would help me. I knew the address of the place already and could probably guess just as accurately as he where it was, but what the heck. He seemed nice and I was too tired to say No Thanks.

We got to the place, which was seven or eight blocks from the subway, and I said I could really offer very little. I didn't want to insult him by giving him pennies. I did find that dollar bill and also gave him the five bucks. Hell, he had gone out of his way and was down on his luck.

Times like this on the trip, I realize that I still do have some money in the bank. Not too much, but enough that I don't have to help clueless quasi-tourists as they linger outside of a subway close to midnight.

A little later on, I was walking by a hotel a few blocks from the hostel. Another lady asked me for some money. Then, several very well-dressed people walked by, looking like they were on the way somewhere important.

I don't know too much about Atlanta -- 16 hours isn't much time to assess the situation -- but it seems like it's just one of many American (and Western, really) examples of poverty and wealth confronting each other each day, block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood.

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Also, Atlanta has a lot of security cameras and what seemed like a pretty substantial presence of guards and police officers. Again, maybe it's where I was in the city (Midtown, looked like Yonge/Eglinton or Yonge/Sheppard), but I never felt entirely uncomfortable.