Is Los Angeles the "original" Sunbelt city?

[TacoSoup]

Technically speaking, San Francisco / Bay Area would be the first. It hit 1M decades before Los Angeles / Southern California. But what everyone thinks of with the sunbelt, Los Angeles is it. It boomed long before WWII, and especially afterwards.

[LINative]

Originally Posted by TacoSoup

Technically speaking, San Francisco / Bay Area would be the first. It hit 1M decades before Los Angeles / Southern California. But what everyone thinks of with the sunbelt, Los Angeles is it. It boomed long before WWII, and especially afterwards.

I don't even think many people moved to San Francisco for the weather, even if winters are better than places like NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Cleveland.

At the same time, I don't think many people moved to New Orleans (someone mentioned New Orleans) because before air conditioning became widespread, the weather in New Orleans is absolutely horrid for a good part of the year. Rather people moved to these cities because there were jobs. So New Orleans and other Southeastern cities were NOT the first Sunbelt cities.

In contrast, Los Angeles and San Diego were known for their beautiful weather even before air conditioning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Belt

The Sun Belt has seen substantial population growth since post-World War II from an influx of people seeking a warm and sunny climate, a surge in retiring baby boomers, and growing economic opportunities. The advent of air conditioning created more comfortable summer conditions and allowed more manufacturing and industry to locate in the Sun Belt.

In other words, once air conditioning became widespread, then large parts of the South became much more inviting, before air conditioning the Sunbelt would have been more restricted to places like Southern California.

[TacoSoup]

Originally Posted by LINative

I don't even think many people moved to San Francisco for the weather, even if winters are better than places like NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Cleveland.

At the same time, I don't think many people moved to New Orleans (someone mentioned New Orleans) because before air conditioning became widespread, the weather in New Orleans is absolutely horrid for a good part of the year. Rather people moved to these cities because there were jobs. So New Orleans and other Southeastern cities were NOT the first Sunbelt cities.

In contrast, Los Angeles and San Diego were known for their beautiful weather even before air conditioning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Belt

The Sun Belt has seen substantial population growth since post-World War II from an influx of people seeking a warm and sunny climate, a surge in retiring baby boomers, and growing economic opportunities. [b]The advent of air conditioning created more comfortable summer conditions and allowed more manufacturing and industry to locate in the Sun Belt.

In other words, once air conditioning became widespread, then large parts of the South became much more inviting, before air conditioning the Sunbelt would have been more restricted to places like Southern California.

People 1000% moved to the Bay Area for its weather. Opportunity brought a lot of people out in the mid-late 1800’s, but you can see tons of ads online that advertised cheap lots with perfect weather for the surrounding counties that were placed in all the newspapers back east in the early 1900’s.

[Mutiny77]

It would seem as though SV/SJ would be the characteristically Sunbelt part of the Bay Area.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

I would say that Detroit laid the blueprint for Sunbelt cities as it was the first city designed strictly for the automobile. I would say that LA/Southern California was the first place in the Sunbelt this was put into practice.

I came here to say this. The answer is Detroit in terms of how you set up an entire metropolitan area to be car dependent. We can thank NYC for the modern suburbs since the first one was Levittown and everything since has been a riff on that.

[Dave_n_Tenn]

I believe most on the east coast would say Miami would be 'their' first thought, when asked about the sun belt. At one time Miami was called NYC 6th borough (county). Miami is now losing population.