During the past decade states in the southern United States have produced an increasing percentage of the nation's "city" magazines. Three magazines illustrate what the southern metropolitan magazines are doing to serve their readers and their communities. "Southern Living" provides information about its readers' interests as urban and suburban residents in the South. Its four main areas of concern are travel and recreation, food and entertaining, homes and decorating, and landscaping and gardening. It provides a blend of the new and old South, capturing the spirit of the region. "Texas Monthly" has adapted the formulas of successful city magazines and provides information and listings about restaurants and entertainment, "best and worst" assessments of Texas, and profiles of well-known personalities, and has run solid investigative stories on many things "sacred" to Texans. It has successfully encouraged its readers to see themselves as Texans first, and as residents of their respective cities second. "Atlanta" magazine was a Chamber of Commerce publication for its first few years, and tended to stress the city's good points and ignore its problems. After a rocky departure from the "Chamber" orientation, becoming a private concern in 1977, and undergoing a rapid succession of editors, "Atlanta" has developed a mixture of solid articles and service features, and will concentrate on in-depth reporting of science and technology, social issues, history, and economics in Atlanta and the South. (HTH)