Search

This paper notes that indicators of intermetropolitan migration and the rise of the sunbelt were evident in the U.S. as early as 1940. The demographic and economic trends that are part and parcel of the phenomenon euphemistically termed the rise of the sunbelt and the decline of the Northeast have recently become a dominant domestic policy concern. Unfortunately, this sudden emphasis on the issue of interregional growth and decline and the lavish praise bestowed upon the supposedly trouble-free sunbelt are both surprising and unwarranted for several reasons. First, the patterns of disparate population and economic growth were evident as far back as the 1940s and thus are not indicative of a new phenomenon. In addition, the sunbelt is hardly the crisis-free region it is portrayed as by its most ardent supporters. In order to place the rise of the sunbelt in a perspective that is unencumbered by the false mystique that now engulfs the region, two facets of this phenomenon are examined: first, the historical patterns and components of the population flows that have contributed to the recent trends of divergent metropolitan development; and, second, some of the potential problems and fundamental contradictions inherent in both the continuation and cessation of this massive population influx.

This paper documents the limited success of Western agricultural methods and falling world foodstuff reserves as of September 1976. The author suggests that developing areas in the future must rely on traditional agriculture to feed their burgeoning populations. The past decade or two has witnessed refreshing return to concern with indigenous agricultural systems, the methods by which they function, the problems they face, the role they play in economic development, and possible ways to work within the confines of those systems to upgrade rather than replace them with questionably applicable Western technology. Our knowledge of those systems is rudimentary at best, yet those systems must bear the burden of providing essential foodstuffs for peoples of the developing areas over the immediate and near future. Serious mistakes in plans and programs have resulted from insufficient understanding of traditional agriculture and have led directly to disasters, and further tampering invites additional, and perhaps serious, problems beyond those we already face in a shrinking world. The author notes that despite considerable colonial effort and more recent effort on the part of independent countries, no superior agricultural systems have been developed that are applicable in tropical developing areas.