Shares of utility The Southern Company (SO), first discussed here on June 19, 2009 at a price of $30.61, have pulled-back roughly in-sync with the Dow's spring retreat, but just look on that dip as an opportunity to scoop-up shares at a decent price. Here's why:

The Southern Co. is likely to be top utility sector performer. The reason? Its Atlanta-area operations.

The Fed's Beige Book is a report card on the status of the US economy.

This month's report says that our economy is still weak, but improving modestly. There is little upward pressure on wages and finished goods. Eight of the 12 regions reported some improvement. Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond and Atlanta showed little change.

Atlanta based soft drink giant Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) got its chance to impress investor's this morning with its fourth quarter earnings, and it did not disappoint. While the company did see profit falling by 18% in the quarter, its bottom line was better than analysts had predicted.

As Steven Mallas noted in his Coca-Cola earnings preview yesterday, analysts had been expecting to see 61 cents per share for the quarter, but the actual number was a bit higher, with a reported 64 cents a share.

If one scrolls back into American history, one can detect a clear pattern of cycles or eras: periods of considerable economic expansion, followed by periods of less economic expansion. Periods of extensive public policy activity, followed by periods of less public policy activity. Periods of extensive suburban sprawl, followed by periods of less development.

As more and more Americans entertain the possibility that $4 per gallon gasoline, may, in the long-term, represent a price floor rather than a ceiling, one can detect the rumbles of a shift in housing preferences, so says economist Glen Langan.

"The 3-bedroom house with a back yard is still a goal. That's part of the American dream. The house with a yard 30 or 40 miles from work, is not," Langan said.

Case in point: the Denver metropolitan area. Suburban and exurban home prices in formerly preferred suburbs, are dropping more than in areas closer to the city center, The New York Times reported.

Denver will hardly be the only city affected, Langan said. "Many cities that experienced a 'long-commute' boom or an exurbia boom during the low gas price area are vulnerable," Langan said. "It's the 30-mile commute re-think." Another example of a city likely to be hit hard is Atlanta.

It's been said that if the U.S. state of Georgia were an independent nation, it would have the 18th largest economy in world. The "Empire State of the South" ranked tenth in U.S. in per capita personal income in 2005, and has one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S. -- about a million additional people between 2000 and 2005. Its diverse industrial output ranges from peaches and peanuts, to textiles, food processing, and aircraft manufacturing, to publishing and tourism. Georgia is home to such corporate giants as Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO); Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL); Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD); UPS (NYSE: UPS); Newell Rubbermaid Inc. (NYSE: NWL), and Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX).

It's also home to Acuity Brands Inc. (NYSE: AYI) and Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN), both of which represented Georgia on the Forbes 2007 list of 100 best mid cap stocks. I examine two other Peach State companies -- RPC Inc. (NYSE: RES) and Radiant Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: RADS) -- in a separate Investing in Georgia post.