Sunbelt

The Sunbelt refers primarily to the southern tier of the United States, including the states of Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. The term “Sunbelt” came into wide use in the 1970s as the population’s shift to the South and West became evident, having profound political and economic consequences. The growth and affluence of the sunbelt contrasted with the sharp decline in population and industry in the rust belt.

The tremendous growth in population of the Sunbelt came from internal migration from the Northwest and Midwest regions of the United States, as well as immigration across the Mexican border. While the economic and political changes became more pronounced in the 1970s, as the rust belt declined, the growth of Sunbelt states began after World War II. By 1990, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio were among the 10 largest cities in the United States. While many cities in the Northeast and Midwest experienced declining or stagnant population growth, Sunbelt cities boomed.

The Sunbelt attracted population because of its warm climate and low cost of living, making Sunbelt states ideal for retirees. Florida and Arizona benefited especially from the growth of an aging American population, as retirement communities in these states sprang up. In addition, the birthrate in the Sunbelt was about 10 percent greater than in the rest of the nation.

Business was attracted to the Sunbelt for a variety of reasons, including the relative lack of labor unions and the prospect of cheaper labor. Following World War II, manufacturing companies began to relocate in the Southeast. Aerospace firms and defense contractors also moved to the Sunbelt states, often near large military bases in Southern California and throughout the Southwest. Moreover, the rise of oil prices in the 1970s benefited oil and natural gas-producing states such as Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The climate of these states also encouraged growth of a tremendous tourist industry, especially in Florida, California, and Arizona.

The regions’ economic prosperity has been uneven. Of the 25 metropolitan areas with the lowest per capita income in 1990, 23 were in the Sunbelt. The oil boom of the 1970s crashed in the early 1980s, hurting cities in oil-producing states. Cities such as Houston, which had been overbuilt in the 1970s, crashed in the 1980s with the decline in oil prices and the savings and loan failures.

In the 1990s Sunbelt cities experienced problems related to their rapid growth—air pollution, clogged highways, high crime rates, and unskilled immigrants. Politically, the Sunbelt has trended Republican since the 1960s. The Solid South and the Mountain West, once reliably Democratic, switched over to the Republican Party beginning in the 1960s. The same trend has seen the once-pre-dominantly Republican northern and eastern states move into the Democratic Party, with the notable exceptions of Ohio and Indiana. In the 1990s, as the Hispanic population grew in the United States, and as more people from the Northeast moved to the Sunbelt, another shift in American politics showed signs of taking shape in the region. California voted Democratic five straight times from 1992 to 2008. Florida voted Democratic in the presidential election of 1996 and was narrowly won by the Republicans in 2000 in a contested vote and won again by Republicans in 2004, but it went back to the Democrats in 2008. New Mexico narrowly voted Democratic in 2000 and voted Republican in 2004, only to go back to the Democrats in 2008. Louisiana voted Democratic in 1992 and 1996, but went back to the Republicans in 2000, 2004, and 2008. Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas remained reliably Republican.

See also POPULATION TRENDS.

Further reading: Carl Abbott, The New Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); B. L. Weinstein and R. E. Firestine, Regional Growth and Decline in the United States: The Rise of the Sunbelt and the Decline of the Northeast (New York: Praeger, 1978).

—Stephen E. Randoll