America the Story of Us - Superpower (10:56)
Settlement and Housing Review

The Federal-Aid Highway Act (1956) Popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act massive interstate highway building (41,000 miles) contributes to suburbanization.

New neighborhoods were designed for automobiles, not pedestrians; drive-in markets, movies, and even churches.

Suburbanization Case Study:  Levittown was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the count - known for the blandness and conformity of its design.  In 1949 William Levitt mass produced 150 houses per week.  $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

Some 15 million housing units were constructed in the United States between 1945 and 1955, leading to historic highs in home-owning. By 1960, 60 percent of American families owned their own homes.

Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region

 By the early 1970s, the South and West had come to embody economic growth and an ambitious political culture,
leading to a  postwar shift in economic and political prominence of  Midwest and Northeast to the South and West

“Sunbelt”- a term coined by the political analyst Kevin Phillips to describe a collection of regions that emerged together in the postwar era to become the most dynamically growing parts of the country.

Factors such as the warmer climate, the migration of workers from Mexico, and a boom in the agriculture industry allowed the southern third of the United States to grow economically.  The climate spurred not only agricultural growth, but also the migration of many retirees to retirement communities in the region, especially in Florida and Arizona.

Industries such as aerospace, defense, and oil boomed in the Sun Belt as companies took advantage of the low involvement of labor unions in the region (due to more recent industrialization, 1930s–1950s) and the proximity of military installations that were major consumers of their products. The oil industry helped propel states such as Texas and Louisiana forward, and tourism grew in Florida and Southern California.

More recently, high tech and new economy industries have been major drivers of growth in California, Florida, Texas, and other parts of the Sun Belt. Texas and California rank among the top five states in the nation with the most Fortune 500 companies.

George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) 

After graduating from Yale, Bush moved his young family to West Texas. His father's business connections proved useful as he ventured into the oil business, starting as an oil field equipment salesman for Dresser Industries, a subsidiary of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., where Prescott Bush had served on the board of directors for 22 years.

While working for Dresser, Bush lived in various places with his family: Odessa, Texas; Ventura, Bakersfield and Compton, California; and Midland, Texas. According to eldest son George W. Bush, then age two, the family lived in one of the few duplexes in Odessa with an indoor bathroom, which they "shared with a couple of hookers". Bush started the Bush-Overbey Oil Development company in 1951 and in 1953 co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation, an oil company that drilled in the Permian Basin in Texas.

In 1954, he was named president of the Zapata Offshore Company, a subsidiary which specialized in offshore drilling. Shortly after the subsidiary became independent in 1959, Bush moved the company and his family from Midland to Houston.