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Revision as of 23:44, 13 March 2007 by Trorov (talk | contribs) (Ajax and Pickering don't even have 100K people. Elgin doesn't either as of the last Census. Rockford is the largest city in its MSA, and is hardly a suburb! Besides, entries should be alphabetized.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) | This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Boomburb" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2006) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Boomburb is a neologism for a large, rapidly growing city that remains essentially suburban in character even as it reaches populations more typical of urban core cities. Like edge city, an older and more widely accepted term, it describes a relatively recent phenomenon in North America.
Definition
Boomburbs are defined as places with more than 100,000 residents that are not the largest city in their metropolitan areas and have maintained double-digit rates of population growth over consecutive censuses. As of the 2000 Census the United States contained 53 boomburbs, which accounted for over half (51 percent) of 1990s' growth in cities with between 100,000 and 400,000 residents. The boomburbs listed below are based on the populations of cities determined by and definitions of metropolitan areas used in the 2000 Census. For the Canadian cities, the 2001 Census applies.
Boomburbs occur mostly in the Southwest, with almost half in California alone. Many boomburbs, especially in the West, are products of master-planned community development and the need to form large water districts. Las Vegas, with its expansive master-planned communities and desert surroundings, contains two boomburbs. By contrast, only two boomburbs in the United States are east of the Colorado Front Range and north of Texas and Florida: Naperville, Illinois in Chicagoland and Chesapeake, Virginia in the Hampton Roads region. Even large and rapidly growing Sunbelt metropolitan areas east of the Mississippi, such as Atlanta, lack boomburbs because suburban growth has occurred largely in unincorporated areas or in dozens of small municipalities.
The boomburb phenomenon can also be observed in Canada, in the Greater Toronto Area and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. These areas, centered on Toronto and Vancouver, are among the fastest-growing in the country. Two other areas experiencing major growth, the Calgary and Edmonton areas, lack boomburbs because much of the growth has occurred within the respective city limits.
Where they Are
In the United States
Arizona: Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Peoria, Scottsdale, Tempe
California: Anaheim, Chula Vista, Corona, Costa Mesa, Daly City, Escondido, Fontana, Fremont, Fullerton, Irvine, Lancaster, Moreno Valley, Oceanside, Ontario, Orange, Oxnard, Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, Santa Clarita, Santa Rosa, Simi Valley, Sunnyvale, Thousand Oaks
Colorado: Aurora, Lakewood, Westminster
Florida: Clearwater, Coral Springs, Hialeah, Pembroke Pines
Nevada: Henderson, North Las Vegas
Texas: Arlington, Carrollton, Garland, Grand Prairie, Irving, Mesquite, Plano
In Canada
British Columbia: Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey
Ontario: Brampton, Burlington, Cambridge, Markham, Mississauga, Oakville, Richmond Hill, Vaughan
References
- Lang, Robert and Patrick Simmons (2001). "Boomburbs: The Emergence of Large, Fast-Growing Suburban Cities in the United States." Fannie Mae Foundation Census Note 06.
- Lang, Robert (2003). "Are the Boomburbs Still Booming?" Fannie Mae Foundation Census Note 15.
- Knox, Paul and Linda McCarthy (2005). Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography. Pearson/Prentice Hall. Second Edition. pp. 163, 164, 560.
- Hayden, Dolores (2004). A Field Guide to Sprawl. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 26-27, 118.
External links
- Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech
- Planetizen: "Is Anaheim the New Brooklyn? " by Robert E. Lang and Jennifer LeFurgy