The West: New Deal, war years, and the fifties

Roosevelt launched a New Deal western economic revolution that included electrification, dam and road construction and military facilities, and thus an incredible war-related blitz of factories, shipyards, war production housing—and airport development. In 1940, growth in the West was slowing; by 1942 it was exploding. It happened so fast, and the volume, relative to what existed, was overwhelming. Small western cities developed almost overnight into boom economies and regional centers. Growth didn’t stop at war’s end; industrial decentralization continued into the 1970s and population migration into the West never slowed after that. Small central cities vigorously chased population by annexing vast amounts of unincorporated areas/suburbs populated by war production housing, production and logistical facilities and airports. But, as events proved, they couldn’t chase fast enough and hugely stressed their tax base trying to provide urban infrastructure and school systems—and suburbs increasingly resisted. Annexation as a central city tool to protect its metropolitan hegemony had its limits—even in the West. By the end of the fifties annexation was running out of steam, and a new economic development strategy would take its place in the sixties. All this change toppled western municipal policy systems, one after another. A new breed of business “liberal†(“neo-Progressive†some called them) took over and, unable to chase metro growth, decided to assert their strength and status in other ways—during the 1960s.