40 Days To Thanksgiving

Es Verdad, Das Ist Richtig…

This year Thanksgiving falls on its latest possible date, November 28. On that date more than 20 years ago the woman who is my wonderful wife and I first met and had our first date. It was not love at first sight, but here we are many years later and we are very happily married. No one can really predict the future, but we can act in the present.

 

“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.”

– Shakespeare

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The development of affordable central air conditioning is one of the most significant in history, certainly in US history. That development has changed the population map of the country; therefore, it has changed the political map. Take a look at the change in the metropolitan area populations of four “Sun Belt” cities from 1970 to 2010:

 

	METRO AREA POPULATION
	1970	2010	Pct Chg
Dallas, TX	1,555,950	6,371,773	310%
Houston, TX	1,985,031	5,946,800	200%
Miami, FL	1,267,792	5,564,635	339%
Phoenix, AZ	967,522	4,192,887	333%

 

Obviously, those areas have grown much, much faster than the US population as a whole. More population means more clout in the US House of Representatives. One example is Texas. It currently has 38 electoral votes, 36 for its number of members in the US House and 2, of course, for its US Senators. After the 1970 Census, though, Texas had 26 electoral votes. Without air conditioning it is inconceivable that the Texas population would have grown so dramatically. (Maybe the table should have shown population by state. However, the metro area data is more dramatic and, therefore, makes my point better.)

Did the people and companies that created modern A/C systems want to change the population map of the US? Does an answer really need to be articulated? Just remember that The Law Of Unintended Consequences is always lurking nearby.

 

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