Has twilight come to the Sun Belt?

We first heard the term decades ago: The "Sun Belt" was just starting a run of phenomenal growth - and no wonder. It conjured a sunny state of mind as well as a balmy place on the map.

Everybody, it seemed, wanted a spot in the sun.

For a generation or more, the Sun Belt thrived like no other region in America - a growth so steady it felt as though the boom would never end. But now it has, replaced by a bust that has left some swaths of the region suffering as severely as anywhere in the current recession.

What brought the dark clouds to the Sun Belt, and are they here to stay?

Interviews with economists and demographers across the region, and data from The Associated Press Economic Stress Index, a month-by-month analysis of foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment rates in more than 3,000 U.S. counties, suggest that the answers are not all encouraging.

Stan Smith, a professor of economics and director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida, says tourism, the "momentum" of decades of population growth, and already extensive networks of personal connections will again draw more migrants to Florida.

Frozen credit won't last, he says. Real estate price declines - as much as 70 percent in some Sun Belt counties - will entice buyers. And with home heating costs in the "Frost Belt" only expected to rise, Smith says, the attraction of warm weather to retiring Baby Boomers can't be overestimated.

Has twilight come to the Sun Belt? - Hattisburg American - May 30, 2009

More on this topic:
Foreclosures take luster off Sun Belt - Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette - May 31, 2009