History Main / BoomTown

* Ireland in the 80s was a million miles away from Ireland of the 00s. A lot the people who moved abroad to find jobs had by now come back, which attracted a lot of property developers. This led to an entire country almost solely based on a housing bubble. Suffice to say, we're not a boom country any more.

* LouisLAmour's novels:

* ''The'' most extreme example has to be New Town in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': If you time it right, you can turn a mostly-vacant patch of land a hundred world-map tiles from nowhere into the game world's largest and most-populous town ''and'' witness it undergo a revolution against the leader (whom you appoint). The game has an active day-night cycle, so all of this can transpire, literally, within a few ''days''.

* [[http://theblueprint.typepad.com/theblueprint/images/dubai1990_2003_1.jpg Dubai.]]
** Really, any Persian Gulf cities qualify, thanks to the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, which attracted multinational expatriates to settle (the native population mostly stays unchanged). It's kind of uncanny to see many dying desert port towns sustained only by prickly pearling trade got suddenly transformed into futuristic [[SkyscraperCity Skyscraper Cities]] virtually overnight.

* St. Petersburg is arguably a subversion, since it was built over the course of several years; on the other hand, as soon as it became the capital, it was filled with many more people than it could support, including many, many construction workers.

* Leipzig already contained a university and an important trade fair by TheLateMiddleAges, but only in the 19th century did it really take of. In 1839 the railway arrived to acity of barely 50 000, linking it with Dresden. In 1870 Leipzig surpassed the mark of 100 000 people for the first time, by the turn of the century half a million was surpassed and by 1930 it stood at just above 700 000 inhabitants, making it Germany's fourth biggest city. Today it hovers just above half a million again and fights for the OverlyNarrowSuperlative of being the biggest city in Saxony (currently Dresden barely edges it out).

* Soviet "Monotowns". Basically, a manufacturing plant, factory or mine was built in the middle of nowhere, and then a town was built around it. Resulted in a lot of troubles in TheNewRussia, with the industries dying out and the towns getting plagued by unemployment, since everybody was supposed to work at a single workplace.

* Berlin went from four hamlets on the outskirts of the residence of Brandenburg/Prussia to the capital of one of the biggest industrial and military powers in Europe. On the eve of World War II it had four million inhabitants. After reunification Potsdamer Platz (which had been too close to the wall to build anything of use during the ColdWar era) became the biggest building site in Europe.

* The town of Township (yes, that's its name) from ''VideoGame/BreathOfFire2'' starts out as a ruined building that your friend Bow is forced to restore while he hides from the law. When the house gets appropriated by shamans, you hire a proper carpenter to build more buildings, while you recruit helpful people for the population. And it can fly, too. All over the course of one game.

* Leipzig already contained a university and an important trade fair by the LateMiddleAges, but only in the 19th century did it really take of. In 1839 the railway arrived to acity of barely 50 000, linking it with Dresden. In 1870 Leipzig surpassed the mark of 100 000 people for the first time, by the turn of the century half a million was surpassed and by 1930 it stood at just above 700 000 inhabitants, making it Germany's fourth biggest city. Today it hovers just above half a million again and fights for the OverlyNarrowSuperlative of being the biggest city in Saxony (currently Dresden barely edges it out).

* The ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' series has a few abandoned encampments in the Zone repopulated by seasoned stalkers and other disorganized bunch of misfits because they need a place to sit, eat, drink, trade, and relax from the [[DeathWorld macabre expeditions]] they often have to undertake. This ends up turning into an inversion of a DyingTown as once empty shells of civilization due to the Chernobyl disaster have suddenly become little beacons of life to cater to the artifact-hunting and weapons trade; namely, instead of a thriving town dying out into a ghost town, the ghost towns become resettled.

* Tell Sackett founds one of these almost inadvertently in the LouisLAmour novel ''Sackett'', as a cover for his more profitable gold strike some distance away.
** Actually, most of Louis L'amour's novels have a boomtown... in ''Fallon'', the titular character starts a boomtown on top of a boomtown, in ''The Iron Marshall'' it's pointed out several times that the town didn't exist just a year before, in ''Bendigo Shafter'', building a town is the whole point... etc. etc.

* The town in the western spoof ''SupportYourLocalSheriff'' springs into existence almost overnight after the accidental discovery of a rich gold strike.

* The page quote comes from an ''WesternAnimation/TheTwelveTasksOfAsterix'', where the eponymous hero and Obelix go to sleep in a haunted plain a day's walk from their village in northwestern France... and wake up in Rome (something never explained, but as that film's epilogue remembers, "Let's face it, [[MST3KMantra this is only a cartoon film]], [[RuleOfFunny and anything goes]]!").

* The page quote comes from an ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' film, where the eponymous hero and Obelix go to sleep in a haunted plain a day's walk from their village in northwestern France... and wake up in Rome (something never explained, but as that film's epilogue remembers, "Let's face it, [[MST3KMantra this is only a cartoon film]], [[RuleOfFunny and anything goes]]!").

* LasVegas back when the mob first came in and started building the hotels and casinos the city is now famous for.

* Container City in {{Brink}} is this, a sprawling town built out of shipping containers, built when refugees arrived on The Ark by the boatload. Supposedly modelled on the favelas of Brazil.

* In ''Franchise/{{Tintin}} in America'', the discovery of oil in a piece of InjunCountry leads to its overnight conversion into a bustling small city (the Indians are forced to leave within an hour).

* The ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' series has a few abandoned encampments in the Zone repopulated by seasoned stalkers and other disorganized bunch of misfits because they need a place to sit, eat, drink, and relax from the [[DeathWorld macabre expeditions]] they often have to undertake. This ends up turning into an inversion of a DyingTown as once empty shells of civilization due to the Chernobyl disaster have suddenly become little beacons of life to cater to the artifact-hunting and weapons trade; namely, instead of a thriving town dying out into a ghost town, the ghost towns become resettled.

* The ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' series has a few abandoned encampments in the Zone repopulated by seasoned stalkers and other disorganized bunch of misfits because they need a place to sit, eat, drink, and relax from the [[DeathWorld macabre expeditions]] they often have to undertake. This ends up turning into an inversion of a DyingTown as once empty shells of civilization due to the Chernobyl disaster have suddenly become little beacons of life; namely, instead of a thriving town dying out into a ghost town, the ghost towns become resettled.

* The ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' series has a few abandoned encampments in the Zone repopulated by seasoned stalkers and other disorganized bunch of misfits because they need a place to sit, eat, drink, and relax from the [[DeathWorld macabre expeditions]] they often have to undertake. This ends up turning into an inversion of a DyingTown as once empty shells of civilization due to the Chernobyl disaster have suddenly become little beacons of life; namely, instead of a thriving town dying off into a ghost town, the ghost towns become resettled.

->'''Asterix:''' There is something funny going on here.
->'''Obelix:''' Either that or these Romans have learnt to build very fast.
-->-- ''The Twelve Tasks of ComicBook/{{Asterix}}''

Not to be confused with short-lived series ''Series/{{Boomtown}}'', or [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E11BoomTown the Doctor Who episode]].

* In ''{{Tintin}} in America'', the discovery of oil in a piece of InjunCountry leads to its overnight conversion into a bustling small city (the Indians are forced to leave within an hour).

* The page quote comes from an ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' film, where the eponymous hero and Obelix go to sleep in a haunted plain... and wake up in Rome (something never explained, but as that film's epilogue remembers, "Let's face it, [[MST3KMantra this is only a cartoon film]], [[RuleOfFunny and anything goes]]!").