The New America: Migration, Immigration and Boomburbs in the West

by Mark Little

Overview

 The United States is being transformed as the Obama election proves.  Mark Little follows millions of 21st-century pioneers to a new frontier in the West. In the sprawling new cities of the Sun Belt states, he chronicles the people and places which have turbo-charged…and redefined… the American dream. This new America will not be defined by political parties  but is being shaped by the millions of immigrants due to arrive in coming years, the millions of Americans who are about to come of age, and the millions who have already followed their destiny to a sun-kissed frontier, somewhere out west. Here we find suburban communities larger than our biggest cities, called “galactic cities”, “edge cities,” “penturbia” and “urban galaxies.”

 
The New America is a story of hope, but it also reveals the dark side of an historic transformation and the economic crisis which threatens to engulf it. He shows the vulnerability of the dream, in an age when “failure” may insert itself as an acceptable word in the American glossary,

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934848890
Publisher:	GemmaMedia
Publication date:	06/18/2010
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

 Mark Little was RTÉ's first Washington Correspondent in September 1995, covering two presidential elections, the Lewinsky scandal and Clinton's involvement in the Irish peace process. Little became RTÉ's Foreign Affairs Correspondent in 2001. He reported on the impact of the September 11 attacks from the United States, Israel, Egypt and Iran, and spent seven weeks in Northern Iraq reporting on the war. In 2001, he was named Television Journalist of the Year for his reporting in Afghanistan. He is the author of three books about the US and global affairs, Turn Left at Greenland, Zulu Time and The New America.  He currently lives in Dublin, Ireland.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

From Publishers Weekly "The dramatic growth of boomburbs—enormous suburbs mushrooming in the American Southwest—frames this outsider's look at the changing political, social and civic culture of 21st-century America. Little, a former correspondent for the Irish RTE network, builds the book around personal vignettes drawn from research he conducted in the region in 2007 and 2008. The author takes snapshots of a number of current hot topics—the rise of the media-savvy Millennial generation, immigration and the subprime mortgage crisis—without delving into any single subject in excessive detail. Little's observations of a congregation led by a former Microsoft employee–turned–pastor illuminate evangelical religious life, while the different Democratic primary positions taken by a father and son, both Texas politicians, reflect generational attitudes toward Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Little's unifying thesis is that boomburb culture represents the competing American impulses of individualism, represented by the frontier, and community. "
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.     '...one of this country's most astute observers of Americana.' Myles Dungan, The Irish Mail on Sunday   'Little has great insight into what makes Middle America tick.' Fergus Finlay, Irish Examiner

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
"The dramatic growth of boomburbs—enormous suburbs mushrooming in the American Southwest—frames this outsider's look at the changing political, social and civic culture of 21st-century America. Little, a former correspondent for the Irish RTE network, builds the book around personal vignettes drawn from research he conducted in the region in 2007 and 2008. The author takes snapshots of a number of current hot topics—the rise of the media-savvy Millennial generation, immigration and the subprime mortgage crisis—without delving into any single subject in excessive detail. Little's observations of a congregation led by a former Microsoft employee–turned–pastor illuminate evangelical religious life, while the different Democratic primary positions taken by a father and son, both Texas politicians, reflect generational attitudes toward Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Little's unifying thesis is that boomburb culture represents the competing American impulses of individualism, represented by the frontier, and community. "
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
 
 '...one of this country's most astute observers of Americana.' Myles Dungan, The Irish Mail on Sunday
 
'Little has great insight into what makes Middle America tick.' Fergus Finlay, Irish Examiner

 

From the Publisher