boomtown

First boomtowns

Early boomtowns, such as Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester, experienced a dramatic surge in population and economic activity during the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th century. In pre-industrial England these towns had been relative backwaters, compared to the more important market towns of Bristol, Norwich, and York, but they soon became major urban and industrial centres. Although these boomtowns did not directly owe their sudden growth to the discovery of a local natural resource, the factories were set up there to take advantage of the excellent Midlands infrastructure and the availability of large seams of cheap coal for fuel.

Another typical boom town is Trieste in Italy. In the 19th century, the free port and the opening of the Suez Canal began an extremely strong economic development. At the beginning of the First World War, the former fishing village with a deep-water port, which used to be small but geographically centrally located, was the third largest city of the Habsburg monarchy. Due to the many new borders, World War II and the Cold War, the city was completely isolated, abandoned and shrank for a long time. The handling of goods in the port and property prices fell sharply. Only when the surrounding countries joined the EU did Trieste return to the economic center of Europe.

In the mid-19th century, boomtowns that were based on natural resources began to proliferate as companies and individuals discovered new mining prospects across the world. The California Gold Rush of the Western United States stimulated numerous boomtowns in that period, as settlements seemed to spring up overnight in the river valleys, mountains, and deserts around what was thought to be valuable gold mining country. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, boomtowns called mill towns would quickly arise due to sudden expansions in the timber industry; they tended to last the decade or so it took to clearcut nearby forests. Modern-day examples of resource-generated boomtowns include Fort McMurray in Canada, as the extraction of nearby oilsands requires a vast number of workers, and Johannesburg in South Africa, based on the gold and diamond trade.

Attributes

Boomtowns are typically characterized as "overnight expansions" in both population and money, as people stream into the community for mining prospects, high-paying jobs, attractive amenities or climate, or other opportunities. Typically, newcomers are drawn by high salaries or the prospect of "striking it rich" in mining; meanwhile, numerous indirect businesses develop to cater to workers often eager to spend their large paychecks. Often, boomtowns are the site of both economic prosperity and social disruption, as the local culture and infrastructure, if any, struggles to accommodate the waves of new residents. General problems associated with this fast growth can include: doctor shortages, inadequate medical and/or educational facilities, housing shortages, sewage disposal problems, and a lack of recreational activities for new residents.

The University of Denver separates problems associated with a mining-specific boomtown into three categories:

deteriorating quality of life, as growth in basic industry outruns the local service sector's ability to provide housing, health services, schooling, and retail

declining industrial productivity in mining because of labor turnover, labor shortages, and declining productivity

an underserving by the local service sector in goods and services because capital investment in this sector does not build up adequately

The initial increasing population in Perth, Western Australia, Australia (considered to be a modern-day boomtown) gave rise to overcrowding of residential accommodation as well as squatter populations. "The real future of Perth is not in Perth's hands but in Melbourne (and London) where Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton run their organizations", indicating that some boomtowns' growth and sustainability are controlled by an outside entity.

Boomtowns are typically extremely dependent on the single activity or resource that is causing the boom (e.g., one or more nearby mines, mills, or resorts), and when the resources are depleted or the resource economy undergoes a "bust" (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse), boomtowns can often decrease in size as fast as they initially grew. Sometimes, all or nearly the entire population can desert the town, resulting in a ghost town.

Examples

Australia

Ararat (1850s gold rush)

Ballarat (1850s–1880s gold rush and deep lead mining)

Bathurst (1850s gold rush)

Bendigo (1850s–1880s gold rush and deep lead mining)

Broken Hill (1880s silver–lead–zinc boom)

Castlemaine (1850s gold rush)

Charters Towers (1870s gold rush)

Geelong (1850s gold rush port, 1920s-1950s due to heavy industry and car manufacturing and 2020s due to affordable housing and gentrification)

Gold Coast (1980s–2000s due to internal Australian migration trends)

Kalgoorlie (1890s gold rush)

Melbourne (1850s–1880s gold rush colonial capital and speculative "land boom")

Newcastle (1910s "Steel City" boom)

Perth (1880s-1890s, 1960s-1970s resources boom, and 2008-2012 iron ore booms)

Brazil

Altamira, Pará

Balsas, Maranhão

Belém (Amazon rubber cycle)

Brasília, Federal District, development of capital

Goiânia, Goiás

Laranjal do Jari, Amapá

Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Bahia

Manaus (Amazon rubber cycle)

Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais (Ouro Preto Gold Rush)

Palmas, Tocantins

Parauapebas, Pará

Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso

Serra Pelada District, Curionópolis, Pará (Serra Pelada Gold Rush)

Sinop, Mato Grosso

Sorriso, Mato Grosso

Tucuruí, Pará

São Paulo, São Paulo

Canada

Calgary, Alberta (during the 1970s oil boom in the province of Alberta)

Barkerville, British Columbia

Barrie, Ontario, residential development and factory retail outlets

Brampton, Ontario, residential development and retail

Dawson City, Yukon (Klondike Gold Rush)

Edmonton, Alberta, railroad, cattle, residential development and retail

Elliot Lake, Ontario

Estevan, Saskatchewan

Faro, Yukon

Fisherville, British Columbia (gold rush boom town of 1864–1865)

Fort McMurray, Alberta, oil extraction

Greater Sudbury, Ontario

Halifax, Nova Scotia, as a port city during the First World War, prior to The Halifax Explosion

Kingston, Ontario, construction of Rideau Canal, penitentiary, post-secondary education, knowledge and services and residential development

Kirkland Lake, Ontario

Mississauga, Ontario, bedroom community and transportation (Toronto Pearson International Airport)

Niagara Falls, Ontario, tourism, marriage conduction and tax-free retail

Oil Springs, Ontario, oil drilling

United Kingdom

Aberdeen, North Sea oil boom, known as the "oil capital of Europe"

Barrow-in-Furness, late 19th and early 20th centuries as the world's largest steelworks and major shipyard

Belfast, Northern Ireland, fastest-growing settlement in the British Isles in the 19th century due to industry and its port

Consett

Jarrow

Leeds

Liverpool, industry and shipping, emigrants

Manchester, rapid economic growth in the early 19th century

Preston, Lancashire, the boomtown of the Industrial Revolution

Winster, Derbyshire, England (17th century lead mining community)

United States

Anderson, Indiana, automotive industry

Atlanta, Georgia (rapidly rebuilt and became a commercial center in the years following the Civil War)

Atlantic City, New Jersey resort boomtown, 1870–1940

Basic City, Virginia, railroads and mining, 1880s–1900s

Beaumont, Texas, oil

Belleville, California, gold-mining boomtown, 1860–1870

Bentonville, Arkansas, corporate boomtown, 2010s–present

Birmingham, Alabama, coal and iron ore, 1880s

Blackwater, Missouri, railroads and mining, 1870–1940

Bodie, California

Borger, Texas

Buffalo, New York, shipping via Erie Canal, steel production, 1825–1890

Burkburnett, Texas

Butte, Montana, copper and other resources

Caldwell, Kansas

Cement, California, 1902 1927

Central City, Colorado

Chester, Pennsylvania, shipbuilding and manufacturing during World Wars I and II

Chicago, Illinois, railroads, commodity resources, business

Others

Batam, Indonesia, free trade

Carbonia, Italy

Dubai, UAE, due to economic policies favoring zero income taxes, regulation-free banking, tax incentives, free trade, real estate investment, pro-Western diplomacy (sanctuary for international navy ships to dock at ports).

Dublin, Ireland, due to catering to genealogical tourism of Americans descended from emigrés from previous centuries

Dunedin, New Zealand due to the 1860s Gold Rush

Bangalore, India, due to outsourcing of call centers and the IT industry

Hyderabad, India, due to outsourcing of call centers and the IT industry

New Town, Kolkata, due to growth of IT industry

Johannesburg, South Africa, Gold/silver/diamond rush

Karachi, Pakistan, manufacturing

Kimberley, South Africa, diamonds and gold

Leipzig, Germany

Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, industrialization due to metallurgic and brewing industries and their related supply chains

Nizhnevartovsk, Russia, oil

Novosibirsk, Russia, planned development as a scientific and industrial center; hosted evacuated population and industry during World War II

Rolleston, New Zealand