“It’s a proud day as Springfield is declared one of America’s four hundred fastest growing cities.” – Narrator

Via Burn Down Blog comes this excellent example of the kind of short form propaganda films that were the basis for “Springfield: City on the Grow” at the beginning of “$pringfield”.  “NEWS of the DAY” produced this in 1963 as part of “The Changing Face of Great American Cities”.  (I’m not sure how well the embedding will work here, the site that’s hosting the video is a little odd, so if you can’t see it you can view it directly at the original link.)

CHANGING FACE OF AMERICAN CITIES

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Easily my favorite part of the narration:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s decision to locate its manned spacecraft center in Houston has unquestionably given an impetus to the city’s growth.  But the growth was already in full swing, this was in fact, one of the reasons NASA gave the nod to the Texas site.  They wanted a city on the way up, not one on the way down, or just holding its own.  And Houston is certainly on the way up, literally pushing toward the sky.

You pitiful cities that are only holding your own will get no space dollars!  Burn Down Blog had YouTube of the video from $pringfield, but the copyright police took it down.  Oh well.