Comments on Edward Ullman's “Amenities as a Factor in Regional Growth”

Abstract

The novelty of the notion that amenities could be an important mobility magnet takes us back to the beginning of what would be a historically lengthy, sustained post–World War II period of prosperity. New industries and urban landscapes were blossoming in the previously peripheral states of California, Florida, and Arizona, whose populations in the decade of the 1940s increased by a net of 53 percent, 50 percent, and 46 percent, respectively (Ullman 1954, 121). Their climatological charms were starting to attract a wave that would reshape the American urban, economic, and political landscape. Seven years after the publication of Edward Ullman‘s classic article, my family became part of the midwestern migration that followed the defense industry to sunny Southern California. The notion that ‘climate and legend’ could motivate an industry as mighty as the U.S. military to choose to relocate and prosper there seemed farfetched (Ullman 1954, 120). But, as Ullman began his article, the times were unleashing a revolutionary prosperity.