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As the huge number of migrants poured into the state, big, new housing projects like that at Lakewood opened up (see cut). California's growth was more than in numbers; it was of a type that reflected a basic strength of the U.S. as a whole. Said one reporter after roaming the shopping district of one of the state's busy coastal towns: "At least 90% of the shoppers were young women. At least 90% of the women were mothers. And it seemed to me that at least 90% of the mothers had one youngster toddling alongside, one in a stroller and a third in escrow. That's the finest combination I know for continued growth."
New England, whose Yankee pride and pocketbook have been hurt of late by the southward migration of the textile industry, could boast of checking its downward economic trend. While 21,000 textile jobs in the area disappeared during the year, more than that number opened up in such new fields as electronics and light metals.Typical of New England's Yankee ingenuity in creating new jobs was the feat performed by the little town of Harmony, Me. Its 700 harmonious citizens contributed $22,000 to pay one-third the cost of a new shoe factory which will employ 120 people. At Framingham, Mass.. Suburban Centers Trust Co.'s huge retail area (see cut) was typical of the growth of shopping centers all over the U.S.
In many parts of the South, one-crop agriculture (cotton) disappeared along with the one-crop industry (textiles). Among the newcomers: Mead Corp.'s $30 million paper plant at Rome, Ga., American Cyanamid's $40 million ammonia plant near New Orleans, Chemstrand's $100 million nylon plant outside Pensacola, Fla. In 1953, for the first time, the value of Dixie's chemical products exceeded the value of its textile output.
The chemical industry was changing other landscapes, too. Outside Cleveland, a 30-mile stretch of Lake Erie shoreline was dubbed "Chemical Shore." Along it lay $235 million worth of chemical plants, and $40 million more will be spent on new plants there in the next two years. Sprouting skyscrapers attested to Denver's new role as an oil capital, as new fields opened up in the area; 250 miles away, on the Colorado Plateau, an entirely new industry—at once somber and all-promising—was thriving. Uranium mining and processing, which employed fewer than five dozen men on the plateau in 1948, last year had a payroll of 8,000 and was a $100 million-a-year business.