Sun Belt - Definition

Definition

The Belt comprises the southern tier of the United States and is usually considered to include the states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, roughly half of California (up to Greater Sacramento), and at least parts of Arkansas, North Carolina, and southern Nevada. A more expansive definition includes the states of Colorado, Oklahoma, Virginia, Utah, and all of California and Nevada.

Author and political analyst Kevin Phillips claims to have coined the term "to describe the oil, military, aerospace and retirement country stretching from Florida to California" in his 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority.

The term "Sun Belt" became synonymous with the southern third of the nation in the early 1970s. There was a shift in this period from the previously economically and politically important northeast to the south and west. Events such as the huge migration of immigrant workers from Mexico, warmer climate, and a boom in the agriculture industry allowed for the southern third of the United States to grow economically. The climate spurred not only agricultural growth, but also saw many retirees move into retirement communities in the region, especially in Florida and Arizona.

Industries such as aerospace, defense, and oil boomed in the Sun Belt as companies took advantage of the low involvement of labor unions in the south (due to more recent industrialization; 1930s through 1950s) and enjoyed the proximity to many U.S. military installations who were the major consumers of their products. The oil industry helped propel southern states such as Texas and Louisiana forward, and tourism grew in Florida and southern California as well. In more recent decades high tech and new economy industries have been major drivers of growth in California, Florida and some other parts of the Sun Belt. Texas and California rank among the top five states in the nation with the most number of Fortune 500 companies, with New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania rounding out the top five.

Since 1970 Sun Belt states have gained 25 electoral votes. Since Lyndon B. Johnson's election in 1964, every elected United States President, with the exception of Barack Obama from Illinois, has been from the Sun Belt. (Gerald Ford, who was from Michigan, became president following Richard Nixon's resignation, but was not elected as president, and lost to Georgia's Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election.)