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[<shepperd AT austincc.edu>]

I just returned from a meeting at the Brookings Institution where I picked up 
this book.  The blurb reminded me of Gene's discussion of the growth of 
Phoenix suburbs.  

Jerry Shepperd

Boomburbs: The Rise of America's Accidental Cities  
 Robert E. Lang and Jennifer LeFurgy  

A glance at a list of America's fastest growing "cities" reveals quite a 
surprise: most are really overgrown suburbs. Places such as Anaheim, 
California, Coral Springs, Florida, Naperville, Illinois, North Las Vegas, 
Nevada, and Plano, Texas, have swelled to big-city size with few people 
really noticing—including many of their ten million residents. 
These "boomburbs" are large, rapidly growing, incorporated communities of 
more than 100,000 residents that are not the biggest city in their region. 
Here, Robert E. Lang and Jennifer B. LeFurgy explain who lives in them, what 
they look like, how they are governed, and why their rise calls into question 
the definition of urban.

Located in over twenty-five major metro areas throughout the United States, 
numerous boomburbs have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in size between 
census reports. Some are now more populated than traditional big cities. The 
population of the biggest boomburb-Mesa, Arizona-recently surpassed that of 
Minneapolis and Miami.

Typically large and sprawling, boomburbs are "accidental cities," but not 
because they lack planning. Many are made up of master-planned communities 
that have grown into one another. Few anticipated becoming big cities and 
unintentionally arrived at their status. Although boomburbs possess elements 
found in cities such as housing, retailing, offices, and entertainment, they 
lack large downtowns. But they can contain high-profile industries and 
entertainment venues: the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Arizona Cardinals 
are among over a dozen major-league sports teams who play in the boomburbs. 

Urban in fact but not in feel, these drive-by cities of highways, office 
parks, and shopping malls are much more horizontally built and less 
pedestrian friendly than most older suburbs. And, contrary to common 
perceptions of suburbia, they are not rich and elitist. Poverty is often seen 
in boomburb communities of small single-family homes, neighborhoods that once 
represented the American dream. 

Boomburbs are a quintessential American landscape, embodying much of the 
nation's complexity, expansiveness, and ambiguity. This fascinating look at 
the often contradictory world of boomburbs examines why America's suburbs are 
thriving and how they are shaping the lives of millions of residents.

Robert E. Lang is co director of the Metropolitan Institute and a professor 
in the Urban Affairs and Planning graduate program at Virginia Tech. 

Jennifer B. LeFurgy is a writer and consultant in Alexandria, Virginia. She 
was formerly deputy director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.