In terms of tech--the Silicon Valley. It transformed from an exurb to the center of one of the world's largest industries, and increased in wealth dramatically. There has been a massive difference over the past 2 decades. Some small towns definitely got swallowed up, and the suburbs developed suburbs of their own out in rural areas like Tracy and Stockton.
In terms of modern examples, many suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona annexed narrow strips of land stretching many miles in order to corner off vast swaths of desert into their municipalities that later became suburbs. Read about that here:
Strip Annexation in Arizona » Twelve Mile Circle » maps, geography, travel
80-is years ago, Los Angeles secretly bought up water rights in California's rural Owens Valley and redirected the entire river along a new Aqueduct to LA. A few insiders knew about all this water coming, and they bought vast swaths of the uninhabitable-for-lots-of-people, rural San Fernando Valley for cheap, then developed the whole area into a 2-million-person suburb, made possible by Owens Valley Water. The Owens Valley quickly became ugly, polluted, and hostile without its water.
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