Rust Belt Problems, Sunbelt Solutions: St. Louis, Dallas–Fort Worth, and the Migratory History of the “Metroplex” Concept

Abstract

Rust Belt Problems, Sunbelt Solutions: St. Louis, Dallas–Fort Worth, and the Migratory History of the “Metroplex” Concept Brian M. Ingrassia (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Texas Metro factual guide for Dallas and Fort Worth, Southwest Metroplex. Lester Strother Texas Metro Records (AR0327), University of North Texas Special Collections. [End Page 304] The Dallas–Fort Worth region is commonly known as “the Metroplex.” Residents and visitors to the United States’ fourth-largest metropolitan area are familiar with the name, and to call another city a metroplex would probably be confusing, if not quite inappropriate. A popular origin story says that in the 1970s, Harve Chapman of Dallas-based Tracy-Locke Advertising fused “metropolitan” and “complex” into the distinctive portmanteau. As of 2021, the website of the North Texas Commission (NTC), an agency established in 1971 to promote the region, claims it “coin[ed] and copyright[ed] the term ‘Metroplex’” in 1972.1 “Metroplex,” however, did not originate in Dallas or in a 1970s ad campaign. Rather, it originated in 1950s community-education projects exploring urban problems, especially in the congested and seemingly declining urban centers of the industrialized Midwest, the area that would eventually become known as the Rust Belt. Scholars initially used [End Page 305] the term to educate people about issues of transportation, race, land use, governance, migration, and pollution, before North Texas then repur-posed the term for its own, up-and-coming metro area. Dallas–Fort Worth employed “metroplex” to market itself as a unique and diffuse metropolitan region with scarce problems, a place where corporations and people escaped urban chaos by embracing a good life characterized by sprawl and leisure. The migration of the metroplex concept—from Midwest to Southwest, as well as from social science to marketing—exposes a significant moment in twentieth-century American history. Historians of the so-called Sunbelt often focus on the role of federal and state governments, religion, and grassroots politics in the quickly growing and influential region stretching from California to the Carolinas, including Texas. They also discuss broader shifts in urban space. John Findlay, for instance, portrays the post–1940 American West as a place of “magic lands”—theme parks, industrial parks, and residential subdivisions—that “seemed less troubled by urban problems and more open to improvements in metropolitan design, social relations, and styles of living.” In complementary studies, Andrew M. Busch and Alex Sayf Cummings show, respectively, how Austin, Texas, and Raleigh–Durham, North Carolina, based their postwar identities on technology, leisure, and the knowledge economy.2 The story of Dallas– Fort Worth’s embrace of the metroplex concept shows not only how a major Sunbelt metro area embodied innovative urban spaces and production, but also how it drew upon existing discourses created by postwar social scientific research to advertise itself as an exceptional place offering Sunbelt solutions to Rust Belt problems. As historian Andrew Highsmith observes, distinctions between Rust Belt and Sunbelt are based more on “narratives of regional development” than upon actually marking either place as “a coherent geographic region.”3 “Metroplex,” which started out [End Page 306] in the 1950s as a term connoting urban problems, assumed utopian connotations in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, it was relatively easy for North Texans to use the term to promote their region’s many purported advantages, such as cheap land, a state-of-the-art airport, low cost of living, and cultural amenities. The intellectual history of “metroplex” casts new light on Texas urban history. Scholars often write about either Dallas or Fort Worth, the twin transportation and commercial hubs of North Texas, rather than the conjoined metro area. Harvey Graff, perhaps controversially, says Dallas is defined in popular culture by the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Dallas Cowboys National Football League (NFL) team, and the television show Dallas. It is a city seemingly with no limits, characterized by the pro-business Dallas Way and the bold emulation of other cities. Yet it is important to note that urban planning, civic boosterism, and conservative politics are also important aspects of Dallas history. The Dallas Citizens’ Council was an important factor driving the city’s growth after 1937...