Boomtown Slowdown

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http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/feb2009/bw2009025_405424.htm

Since 2000, hundreds of communities across the U.S. have seen unprecedented growth in new homes and income. Will they be able to survive?

Across the nation, once-quiet farming villages and industrial towns were transformed over the past decade into boomtowns. Their rapid growth was fueled by cheap land, nearby job centers, easy transportation, and a steady influx of homebuyers seeking large spaces at affordable prices.

Low interest rates and easy mortgages brought about a real estate explosion in much of the country in recent years. But in boomtowns, development powered on at a supercharged pace—sometimes sparked by a new sewer line, a new regional mall, or a new highway exit.

It was good while it lasted. But the housing crisis and the recent economic downturn have forced many of the America's fastest-growing towns to adapt to the new reality of falling home prices and rising unemployment. And it's not clear whether the builders will return or whether the nation's next boomtowns will rise elsewhere.

"The boomtowns of this decade are not booming so much in the last couple years," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "It's possible those places will come back again. A lot depends on where the economy grows and where the new knowledge centers are."

BusinessWeek.com worked with the Little Rock firm Gadberry Group to come up with the town in each state that experienced the most growth since 2000. We weighted a number factors, including growth in households from 2000 to 2008 and from 2007 to 2008, the emergence of new neighborhoods, the average length of residence, and the change in household income.

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The Boomtown selected from Oklahoma was Owasso.  []

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