Introduction: All roads lead to Fresno -- Outposts of empires -- Building a West of cities, 1840-1940 -- Across the wide Mississippi -- The first Pacific century -- Inland empire cities -- Garden cities -- Smokestack frontiers -- Money in the air -- Cities of homes -- Water, power, progress -- The metropolitan West since 1940 -- Wars and rumors of war -- Progress and prejudice -- The politics of diversity -- Reshaping the metropolis -- Transnational urbanism -- The long arm of the metropolitan West -- Conclusion: Urban frontiers.