Boomburbs : the rise of America's accidental cities /

Lang and LeFurgy, professors at Virginia Tech, present statistical description and cogent comparative analysis placing "boomburbs" in the context of the urban US. Do these 50 or so urban places merit a separate name and analysis? Each must exist as an incorporated city with at least 100,000 inhabitants, must not be the core city in its region (must be suburban in some sense), and must have double-digit population growth for the past three decades. The authors' 54 boomburbs include 26 in California, 9 in Arizona, 3 in Colorado, and 1 each in Oregon, Washington, and Nevada, making boomburbs overwhelmingly "west coast." Seven occur in Texas and four in Florida, plus one each in Virginia and Illinois. State laws affecting incorporation of urban places or annexation of growth areas into existing cities receive too little attention here, blinding readers to many places that are socially similar (suburbs annexed by Houston that would have been boomburbs in California, for example). The case for this specific grouping and label seems weak, but the wealth of statistical and contextual analyses of these places makes the book valuable for graduate students and faculty in urban affairs, as well as for city planners. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty/professionals. E. Carlson Florida State University