America at 250: a look at how North Texas reinvented the suburb

Places like Plano and Frisco transformed suburbs from bedroom communities into economic and political power centers, reshaping metropolitan America.

North Texas helped turn the American suburb inside out.

Instead of serving as bedroom communities for a central city, places like Plano, Frisco, Irving and McKinney embraced their spot in the sprawl and became economic and political power centers in their own right.

Corporate headquarters followed. So did jobs, investment and influence.

Call it a Sun Belt model for 21st-century metropolitan America. Increasingly, the nation's fastest-growing regions looked less like older East Coast and Midwest cities and more like North Texas, where prosperity extends beyond urban centers.

Read more from our media partners, The Dallas Morning News.