alt Hacker NewsAtlanta during the BBS era must have been paradise. It had the largest local free calling zone of anywhere in the US. Where I lived, the town on the other side of the interstate was in-state long distance, so we were confined to the BBSes in our little suburb plus the nearby "big city" of about 100k people.
Maybe some places like the Bay Area and New York City had more local BBSes but it wouldn't surprise me if Atlanta was in the top five or even the top given the huge free calling zone.
The SF Bay Area was probably full of BBSes, as was the Los Angeles Area, but we had Inter-LATA or 'Zone 3' calling for stuff where the central office was I think more than 15 miles away, but under some limit. Closer rate centera than that was local, farther would go through your long distance carrier. Unlimited local calling was available at a reasonable price, but Zone3 was still charged per minute (could cost more than some long distance carriers)