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In my mind, the concepts "Sunbelt city" and "suburb" are nearly synonymous. This idea became real to me several years ago when I was teaching at Arizona State University West, located in the northwest reaches of Phoenix. Driving down those boulevards, where the asphalt seemed to melt beneath my tires on hot days , I passed mile after mile after mile of tract housing, mini-malls, dividing walls, broken up only by the occasional big box store or freeway on-ramp. All of the trappings of the suburbs seemed to define this metropolitan landscape. In Phoenix, the city was one continuous stretch of suburbia.
Sunbelt cities, in fact, have had a particularly close relationship to suburbia, partly a result of timing. Many Sunbelt cities came of age when the suburbs were reaching their heyday in America. As a result, Sunbelt cities have come to resemble suburban metropolises, cities that are defined spatially by suburban sprawl and that have taken on many of the cultural, social, and political characteristics of suburbia as well.
To understand this important link between Sunbelt cities and suburbanization, we need to step back for a moment to consider the broader context of urban history and where Sunbelt cities fit into that context. Some urban historians talk of three phases of urban development in the United States: the walking city era (seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries), the industrial city era (1840-1940), and the metropolitan era (1940 to the present). The industrial city was defined first and foremost by its namesake-industry-meaning that industrial production left an indelible imprint on the urban form itself and the texture of social life. Smokestacks and soot shaded the physical landscape; class divisions defined the social landscape. Enter the metropolitan era. Coming at a time when America had fully embraced the "culture of consumption," especially as it entered the post-World War II years, the metropolitan era saw a fundamental shift. Instead of an urban identity anchored around industrial productivity, the new urban metropolis would be anchored around the flip side: leisure and consumption. The postwar metropolis would celebrate play and recreation, families and nature. Traditional downtowns and industrial districts would be replaced by freeways, clusters of suburban homes, and low-rise, clean industrial parks. The urban landscape itself would soften...