Sunbelt

The Sunbelt has eluded precise geographical definition— or, perhaps more accurately, it has been defined in a variety of ways. Virtually everyone agrees that the Sunbelt includes areas on or near the Atlantic coastline of the South and the Gulf and Pacific coasts from Norfolk to Miami to Mobile to Houston to Los Angeles, plus noncoastal areas of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona north of the Rio Grande. Many would include areas as far inland as the 37th parallel of latitude (roughly, a line running from North Carolina’s northern border west to California), while others would include the entire West Coast (despite the cool, rainy climate of the Pacific Northwest). But whatever the exact boundaries of the Sunbelt, it expanded significantly in the 1929-45 era and became increasingly important in the nation’s economic, cultural, and political life in the post-World War II era.

Although Sunbelt growth accelerated dramatically during World War II, the expansion of some Sunbelt areas had long been underway. During the long decade of the Great Depression of the 1930s, with its low rates of population growth and of migration, for example, the population growth of California and Florida dwarfed that of other areas, chiefly because of high in-migration rates. California had a net in-migration of just over 1 million people, Florida of one-third million. Both states attracted migrants because of their climate and quality of life, while California’s agriculture and industry were also lures. But except for urban California, the Southwest was sparsely populated and without much manufacturing, while President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the South the nation’s “number one” economic problem because of its widespread poverty, depressed agriculture, and limited manufacturing. For the most part, then, the Sunbelt shared the hard times and limited growth that marked the rest of the nation in the 1930s.

As wartime MOBILIZATION galvanized the nation, it had a particularly large impact on the Sunbelt, especially its metropolitan areas. Military bases along the southern Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts were built or expanded to take advantage of climate, open space, and access to sea transportation to the battlefronts. Tens of billions of federal dollars poured into Sunbelt states to finance war production. California alone received nearly 10 percent of all federal money spent during World War II. Pacific Coast shipyards and aircraft plants from Seattle to San Diego built about half of all ships and planes during the war, while the southern shipbuilding industry from Norfolk to New Orleans built about one-fourth of all ships. The South also had a nascent aircraft industry in the Atlanta-Marietta and Dallas-Fort Worth areas; Birmingham’s steel industry boomed; and Gulf Coast petroleum industries played a vital role in synthetic RUBBER production and other vital needs. In the West, metals and electronics expanded. The Manhattan Project that built the atomic bombs depended heavily upon installations in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Not only did the war stimulate economic growth and expansion, then, but it did so in defense-related and technological industries that would be increasingly important in the postwar era.

The expansion of military installations and defense industries brought wartime migrants flocking to Sunbelt cities. Of the eight most congested metropolitan centers produced by wartime migration, three were in the South and the other five on the West Coast. Servicemen came from all around the nation, while defense workers and their families came especially from the rural South, Southwest, and Midwest. Many of those who had moved to Sunbelt cities remained after the war, while some servicemen who passed through returned, especially to California. Between 1940 and 1950, the nation’s population increased by 15 percent—and California’s by 53 percent. Such major metropolitan areas as Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Dal-las-Forth Worth, Miami, and Atlanta grew by at least 50 percent, and sometimes much more, during the decade, as did a host of other Sunbelt cities.

Such economic and demographic change had major impact not just on the Sunbelt but also on the nation as a whole. Underwritten by federal money, wartime and postwar economic growth, especially in new aerospace, electronics, and other defense-related industries occurred to a substantial degree not in the old urban-industrial northeastern quadrant but rather in the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt also continued to attract the largest migratory streams, as people moved there to find good jobs, to enjoy the quality of life, or to retire. Wartime migrants had been young people for the most part, and they, with the postwar newcomers, lent a dynamic, optimistic aura to their new communities. The Sunbelt played an increasingly vital role in such areas as RELIGION, MUSiC, and politics. Every president elected from 1964 to 2008 was from a Sunbelt state. The World War II mobilization, though largely accelerating trends already under way, thus played a key role in the growing importance of the Sunbelt in national life.

Further reading: Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice, eds., Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth since World War II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983); Gerald D. Nash, The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).