They tended to reconstitute their Midwestern and small Southern society. The fate of immigrants coming across the border became a hot point of contention. The Navy pulled most of its installations out of town. Still, raw hostility to immigrants continues in many parts of the population. Listen to San Diego talk radio and the issues of strategic choices and shared community futures are inaudible.
Some regions do, however, manage to act in the absence of a precipitating crisis.
The people of the Portland region, a quarter century ago, merely saw crises looming - loss of farm and open space, the exquisite Northwest environment, and a peril of highways devouring the region's preeminent city. They responded with a regional government to match a new state law and set a serious boundary for the urban region. They reduced incentives to drive by killing the proposed Mt. Hood Freeway and replacing roaring traffic arteries with a three-mile long park along the Willamette River. Neighborhoods and architects took strong exception to downtown garage-building and agitated for what became the Downtown Plan that has made Portland into one of the most attractive, vibrant cities on the North American continent. Indeed, Portland is so sought-after that hundreds of thousands of people from other regions are now pouring in, providing a crisis of how to accommodate the waves of people and new industry without giving up the region's special qualities.