For Clearwater, a dubious distinction

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 13, 2001

Congratulations, Clearwater. You're a boomburb.

Boomburbs "may be the ultimate symbol of the sprawling postwar metropolitan form" of urban growth, say demographers Robert E. Lang and Patrick A. Simmons, writing for the Fannie Mae Foundation's Census Notes.

So what's a boomburb? It's a place with a population exceeding 100,000 that is not the largest city in the metro area and that has maintained double-digit rates of population growth in recent decades.

Clearwater is one of four in Florida and one of 53 nationwide.

It grew from a population of 15,581 in 1950 to 108,787 last year, according to Census figures, an increase of 598 percent. Its population represents 4.5 percent of the Tampa Bay area's population of 2.4-million. The other Florida boomburbs are Coral Springs, Hialeah and Pembroke Pines, all near Miami.

Many of the boomburbs are in the Southwest and West. The largest is Mesa, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix, with a population of 396,375, which makes Mesa larger than Minneapolis and St. Louis. Mesa is one of seven boomburbs of Phoenix that represent 42.2 percent of the metro population of 1.37-million.

Boomburbs accounted for over half of the 1990s' growth in cities with between 100,000 and 400,000 residents. They contain a quarter of all the people who live in such places, the authors say.

In effect, these are stealth cities. Often without skylines or downtowns, they lack a dense business core. Developing along interstate beltways that ring major cities, they are characterized by office parks, big-box retail, strip development and subdivisions, dominated by large-lot, single-family homes.

That sounds like most of the Tampa Bay area.

If you live in Palm Harbor or East Lake or New Tampa or Wesley Chapel or Brandon and are wondering why you don't qualify as a boomburb (a dubious distinction), here's the answer, Lang explained in a telephone interview:

First, boomburbs are incorporated cities only. Second, those cities "had to have a population of at least 100,000 and have double-digit growth since 1950 or whenever they got started," he explained. Some of these cities have existed only since the 1960s or '70s.

In "a lot of the area north of Tampa, and south as well," Lang said, "the big planned communities will probably push the population by 2010 or 2020 above 100,000. There are plenty of places that will get incorporated," and therefore will be eligible for boomburb designation next time around.

Boomburbs "face extreme degrees of development-related problems, such as traffic congestion, strained public services and sprawl," the authors say.

That sounds like most of the Tampa Bay area too.

"However, because of their large size and their potential to cooperate with other large municipalities," the authors say, "boomburbs may prove well-positioned to participate in comprehensive regional solutions to these problems."

Now we've got a name for it. At least we can start talking about how to handle the boomburbs -- and potential boomburbs -- we live in.

Read the full report at www.fanniemaefoundation.org/boomburb.PDF

Something new -- and warm -- under the sun

As we look ahead to cooler weather, lots of us are taking those lumpy electric blankets out of storage. They may soon be quaint relics.

Malden Mills, the people who invented Polartec fleece fabric, have come up with a real revolution in electric blanket design. Their Polartec Heat Blanket knits fine conductive fibers -- about the thickness of a hair -- into the cashmerelike fabric of the blanket. No lumpy wires, no bumps, and the blankets are washable, unlike conventional electric blankets.

The blanket connects to a base unit under the bed that plugs into an electrical outlet to convert high-voltage AC power to low-voltage DC.

Sleepers control the blanket's warmth with a wireless device, a remote control for the blanket that you can place on a bedside table or clip to a sheet for easy access during the night. Queen- and king-size blankets come with dual controls.

For several years Malden Mills has been developing "the ability to integrate electronics in a microscopic manner into fabrics," said David Costello, director of sales and marketing, in an interview from the company's headquarters in Lawrence, Mass.

"There has been a lot of talk in the industry about "smart fabrics,' "electronic textiles,' "wearable electronics,' but you could never actually buy anything until now," he said.

Malden Mills holds the patents on the technology and the manufacturing process. It worked first on electric blankets, a consumer product that has gone virtually unchanged for decades.

Consumers can sit on the new blankets, which you're not supposed to do with standard electric blankets. Polartec blankets are light in summer, warm in winter, Costello said, so they can stay on a bed year-round, and their luxurious fabric is more appealing to touch than the coarse feel of many standard electric blankets.

Some critics charge that traditional electric blankets set up electromagnetic fields that may cause cancer. Costello says that alternating current has "historically been associated with electromagnetic fields." The Polartec blanket uses a small transformer to lower the current from 120 volts of alternating current to 28 volts of direct current, "which has never been used before in this type of product" and is not thought to be a generator of electromagnetic fields. If the blanket were cut, the combination of low voltage, direct current and dispersal of current throughout the entire blanket rather than in big wires means "There would be no shock or jolt," Costello said. "It is extraordinarily safe."

The Polartec heat technology is incorporated in a winter jacket available this fall from North Face that is powered by a tiny rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the jacket, and Malden is developing gloves, socks and throws.

The Polartec Heat Blanket is being marketed this fall exclusively by Lands' End Home. A double is $159, a queen $199, a king $219. It comes in five colors: dark camel, mineral green, brick red, deep forest green and cornflower blue. Look for it in the Lands' End holiday catalogs that should be arriving in homes Monday, or visit the Web site at www.cominghome.com. Or call toll-free 1-800-345-3696.

Trick or treat

Set the VCR: Halloween is coming, and on her show Friday at 9 a.m. on WFTS-Ch. 28, Martha Stewart "reveals how easy it is to make an alien space costume." We can all use a little levity these days, and this sounds like it.

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