Sun Belt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sun Belt, highlighted in red

This article is about the region of the United States. For the American athletic conference, see Sun Belt Conference.

The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the South and Southwest. The Sun Belt has seen substantial population growth in recent decades compared to the Rust Belt states of the Northeast and Midwest. Another rough boundary of the region is the 37th to 38th parallels, north latitude -- southward.

Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas are the states most commonly identified with the Sun Belt, and South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama are also within the same region as far as climate is concerned. Culturally, however, southern states from Texas to Florida are more often referred to as Bible-Belt states, while southwestern states extending to the Pacific coast (New Mexico, Arizona, and California) are most often associated with a life-style synonomous with the Sun Belt. Some people consider North Carolina to be a Sun Belt state because it has seen similar growth, although its climate is slightly more "wintry" than the other states in the group. Major cities that are in the Sun Belt and experience major economic growth include:

Every elected President of the United States since 1964 has come from a Sun Belt State. (Gerald Ford, born in Nebraska but raised in and primarily identified with Michigan, who served as president after Nixon's resignation, was not elected to the position.) They are:

Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) -- Texas
Richard M. Nixon (1968, 1972) -- California
Jimmy Carter (1976) -- Georgia
Ronald Reagan (1980, 1984) -- California (originally from Illinois)
George H. W. Bush (1988) -- Texas (originally from Massachusetts)
Bill Clinton (1992, 1996) -- Arkansas
George W. Bush (2000, 2004)-- Texas (originally from Connecticut)

Even more oddly, only one president prior to this was raised in a Sun Belt state—Woodrow Wilson, raised in Georgia—although two others, Andrew Johnson and James Polk, may be counted if North Carolina is included. Dwight D. Eisenhower can be considered as being from a Sun Belt state, as he was born in Texas; however, his family moved to Kansas when he was two years old, and he lived there throughout his childhood before leaving for West Point.

The author and political analyst Kevin Phillips - in an essay entitled "How the GOP Became God's Own Party" that appeared in the Washington Post on Sunday, April 2, 2006 - claims "I coined the term "Sun Belt" to describe the oil, military, aerospace and retirement country stretching from Florida to California," in his 1969 book "The Emerging Republican Majority."