The Future of the Sunbelt, Managing Growth and Change (review)

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 24, No. 2, November 1984, pp. 130-132 The Future of the Sunbelt, Managing Growth and Change. Steven C. Rallard and Thomas E. James. Editors. New York: Praeger Publishers , 1983. xxi and 246 pp., maps, tables, additional readings, index. $23.95 cloth (ISBN 0-03-063392-3) The theme of this book and some of the individual chapters originated as a part of a two year research project, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, at the Science and Public Policy Program, University of Oklahoma. Not surprisingly, given this origin, the overwhelming majority of the contributors are affiliated with Oklahoma and Texas research organizations and universities. Some Southeastern readers may find that the "Sunbelt" context used in this book has a particularly strong Southwestern flavor. This is most evident in the selection and discussion of individual growth related issues and examples . As implied in the title, this book has three primary goals. First, and most importantly, it seeks to identify the primary causes of Sunbelt growth and explore the relative importance ofvarious factors in creating the Sunbelt phenomenon and sustaining it. Secondly, it attempts to provide an assessment of what will be the salient growth related issues in the future, particularly those which will require public intervention in order to mitigate externalities or maximize benefits. Finally, the editors focus the discussion on several specific topics associated with managing growth. Among these goals, the first and the third receive the greatest attention and are also the most adequately addressed. The effort to assess and examine future growth trends suffers from several problems, the foremost being a paucity of in-depth analysis and explanation . Many of these chapters exhibited only shallow treatment of complex problems, accepting pat popular explanations or shifting into political diatribes as a substitute for analysis. This weakness is particularly unfortunate since this component represents potentially the most valuable contribution of the book. As with most edited books, the quality and appropriateness of inOwen Furuseth, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223. Vol. XXIV, No. 2 131 dividual sections varies enormously. The first two chapters present an overview of past, present, and future Sunbelt growth and are intended to provide the foundation for later authors. In Chapter 1, Rebecca Roberts and Lisa Butler present an insightful analysis of the causes of Sunbelt growth, exploring the roles played by various factors and institutions , both endogenous and exogenous, and evaluating the theoretical explanations of the Sunbelt phenomenon. This is easily the best chapter in the book. In contrast, Chapter 2 by Thomas James simply presents the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) 1980 regional economic projections through the year 2010 for the Sunbelt region, periodically comparing these data with BEA projections for the nation and other regions. While this chapter was intended as an overview, the scale and scope of the presentation tends to create gross generalizations concerning projected growth and economic change across the region. This problem might have been dealt with in a later chapter focusing on subregional or intra-state disparities, but it is not. As a result, the significant differentials in population growth rates, employment characteristics and earnings within the Sunbelt are ignored, and intra-state and regional disparities which create special classes of growth management problems are never considered. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 7 are focused on anticipating and assessing the effects of future Sunbelt growth. Although presented from different perspectives, each of these sections emphasizes either the problems posed by a specific growth related issue or the larger question of institutional capacity to respond to growth and change. Chapter 3, for example , examines the increasingly controversial topic of capital flight, often cited as a cause of Frostbelt decline and Sunbelt growth. Political scientist Daniel McGovern presents an excellent discussion of the alternative theories surrounding capital movement. Unfortunately, his attempt to empirically test the alternative explanations is unconvincing owing to a highly suspect research design. The title of Chapter 4 is "Urban Health Care Delivery in the Sunbelt " but would be more appropriately titled "How Ronald Reagan has Ruined Health Care Delivery in the Sunbelt." This essay is unadulterated Reagan bashing, and quickly losses any credibility...