Post-1940 urbanization (metropolitanization)

The first phase of urbanization proceeded steadily from 1880 until the advent of World War II. Mobilization for the war, however, led to a rapid acceleration of urban growth, to significant changes in the paths of urbanization, and ultimately to another substantial redistribution of the Southern population. Urbanization occurred at an astonishing pace during this second phase, and because it was focused primarily on the larger cities of the South, is probably better termed “metropolitanization”. In 1940 just over a third of all Southerners lived in urban areas; 30 years later more than two thirds lived in towns and cities. However, whereas urbanization during the late 19^th century involved the creation of villages and towns and migration to towns and small cities from the surrounding countryside, post-1940 urbanization involved migration to large cities and metropolitan areas and involved inter-regional migration as well as migration from the immediate area.

Urbanization during this second phase was initially triggered by the expansion of military installations in the South and the gearing up of industry to meet war needs. After the war, both the rapid mechanization of Southern agriculture, along with the consequent reduction in the number of family farms, and also Southern industrial development led to continued growth of the urban population, again primarily in large cities. Further, for the first time in the history of the South, the number of rural residents (as opposed to just the proportion) began to decline.

During the 1970s these trends received new impetus from the “Sunbelt Phenomenon”, which was spurred by rapidly expanding economic development in the South and the decay of industry in the North. After 1970, however, urban growth occurred almost exclusively in metropolitan areas. Rural areas, towns, and even small cities began to stagnate and lose population as Southerners increasingly moved to the largest cities in the region. Again, the rate of the migration to metropolitan areas is stunning. By 2000, some 78% of the Southern population lived in 119 metropolitan areas, all but four of which had more than 100,000 residents, while 43% of the population was concentrated in 19 metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1,000,000. These figures include Virginia residents, but not Maryland residents or residents of other states in the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area. Even if this area and other fringe areas of the South (e.g. Miami) were eliminated, the conclusions outlined above would still hold. The growth of Southern metropolises after 1970 was fueled not only by migration from the surrounding countryside, but also by migration from the North. The latter reversed a long-standing pattern, begun with the advent of World War I, that saw massive numbers of Southerners moving to Northern cities for work. Although the reversal of the South-to-North migration pattern was initially a white phenomenon, by the 1990s African Americans had begun to return to the South as well. The largescale migration of African Americans out of the South continued through the mid-1970s, but during the 1990s African Americans began to move southward at a rate that closely paralleled their earlier exodus.

In the space of 120 years, then, what was once an agrarian society comprised primarily of isolated, self-sufficient farms, with almost nine of ten people living in rural areas, became a commercial-industrial society organized around large, interconnected metropolises, with almost eight of 10 people residing in just 119 metropolitan areas. The transformation of the demographic landscape has had an enormous impact on Southern culture and language. Like the process of urbanization, however, the linguistic transformation of the South has been complex and has taken place in two distinct stages.