Regional Metropolitanization
McDonald includes six southern cities[1] in his description of the period: Dallas-Fort Worth, the largest, with nearly 1 million population (which would have placed it as the 13th most populated city in the Northeast–less populated than Buffalo) with 13% of its central city residents black. Miami was the least populated with about 500,000 (same as Columbus OH) with about 16% of blacks in the central city. Birmingham (40%), Atlanta (37%), New Orleans (32%) and Houston (25%) had the highest percentages of central city residents. The rates of black in these central cities, therefore, were three two to three times higher than cities in the “North”.
Manufacturing employment nationwide was 29%, but in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth it was 21% and 22% respectively. Dallas held 90%+ of its manufacturing in the central city, but Birmingham, the most industrial had the least manufacturing (50%) in the central city. Otherwise, cities nationally had rates on or above 70% in the central city. New Orleans had little manufacturing (16%) and was trade and distribution focused as was Atlanta with only 19% manufacturing. Birmingham had the highest rate of southern manufacturing (26%) but was still below the national average. During the 1940’s, unlike most Northern central cities, three southern urban areas (New Orleans, Birmingham and Atlanta) grew at rates exceeding 20% (24% in New Orleans). Despite its relatively low rates of manufacturing employments, there were pockets of manufacturing expansion in the South in 1950–the South, by no means, had caught up to the North by 1950 although it is true that wage rate disparities between the two regions had narrowed considerably.
The West was also its own story; actually it was several stories wrapped up into one conglomerate-like region. McDonald includes six Western cities in his analysis with Los Angeles (4.7 million) as the most populous (3rd place in the Northeast) and Phoenix the least (332,000) [2] (36% of the population of the entire West resided in Los Angeles and San Francisco[3]). San Francisco-Oakland had the highest rates of central city black residents (12%) and Los Angeles 9%. Other western cities were five percent or less.
Western manufacturing was considerably below the nationwide average of 29% as no western city, except Los Angeles (25%) had manufacturing rates exceeding 20%. Phoenix had only 9%. But Phoenix had only 40% of manufacturing within its central city, while Seattle, Denver, and San Diego exceeded 90%. Los Angeles (47%) and San Francisco (57%) exhibited low rates of central city manufacturing employment compared to the Northeast. Even as early as 1950, the Western state economic base and the location of its manufacturing employment in the metropolitan area contrasted with that of the Northeast and Midwest. The West was not a clone of the East or the South While industrializing and narrowing wage rate differentials the South still remained the nation’s poorest region by far. There were, however, subtle hints that an alternative path of urban economic growth (trade and finance as opposed to manufacturing) was emerging both in the South and the West. For the most part, however, these subtleties and distinctions were not incorporated into the conventional wisdom of the era. Manufacturing was the king of the American economy and the king resided in the central cities of the Northeast and Midwest.
Footnotes
[1] In order of size, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Birmingham and Miami as major southern urban areas.
[2] In order of size, Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland (2.2 million), Seattle (734,000), Denver (564,000), San Diego (557,000). and Phoenix.
[3] McDonald, op. cit. p.41.
Throughout the Northeast and Midwest, corporate chieftains, downtown merchants, and civic activists claiming to speak for a broad range of groups all agreed that the older central cities had to launch initiatives to overcome obsolescence and achieve rejuvenation. Through downtown business figures were to be disproportionately significant in the struggle for revival during the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, renewal schemes were not the product of small cabals of plutocratic overlords who foisted them on an unwilling public. A number of private groups were demanding action and …could prove feisty foes of public officials who dragged their feet.[1]
[1] Teaford, op. cit. p. 53.
[2] Robert J. Tilden, “Public Inducements of Industrial Location: A Lesson from Massachusetts” Maine Law Review, p. 14; see also David E. Pinsky, State Constitutional Limitations on Public Industrial Financing: A Historical and Economic Approach, University of Pennsylvania Law Review (1963), pp.. 277-284 and Columbia Law Review, Volume 59 (1959), pp- 619-623. A more recent legal review of gifts provisions in state constitutions cites that in 2011 forty six states had some form of a gift provision in their state constitution. See Nicholas J. Houpt, “Shopping for State Constitutions: Gift Clauses as Obstacles to State Encouragement of Carbon Sequestration”, Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, Volume 36, Number 2 p. 379ff–see footnote 117; see also, Richard Briffault, The Disfavored Constitution: State Fiscal Limits and State Constitutional Law, Rutgers Law Journal. Volume 34. 907 and Ralph L. Finlayson, State Constitutional Prohibitions Against Use of Public Financial Resources in Aid of Private Enterprises, Emerging Issues in State Constitutional Law, Volume 1 (1988).
Ron W. Coan 