(18) __________

Many workers followed the jobs. The middle class expanded and created suburbs such as the one on Long Island. The automobile accelerated this decentralization; planned communities like Levittown offered affordable middle-class housing. Larger cities stopped growing around 1950. Growth resumed only in New York City, in the 1980s. Buffalo’s population fell by half between 1950 and 2000. Reduced immigration and worker migration led New York State’s population to decline for the first time between 1970 and 1980. California and Texas both surpassed it in population.