I spent 4 years commuting from Canton to Atlanta in prime rush hour traffic, although it does suck - It sucks much less than a lot of other cities I've spent time in... 50 miles of "bumper to bumper" from 575-to 75south to 285 East was only about an 1.5 hour commute - When I was in LA that would have taken 4 hours, NYC about the same... Not familiar with DC traffic, but Atlanta definitely not bad by nationwide standards.

It's great how cheap it is to live here, I had a friend move here from Long Island recently and he was paying $1800 rent on a one bedroom apt, $1800 rent/month here gets you a 5 bedroom house in a gated community haha.