Anchorage Settles Down

"In a city where fashion has always played a distant second to staying warm, a cluster of boutiques in the budding 'SoNo' district, south of Nordstrom, does a brisk business in $50 lotions and $180 designer jeans - just one of many signs that this once unruly oil-boom town has been tamed."

"Strip malls replace strip clubs, big-box stores draw more customers than bars and residential neighborhoods have supplanted RV parks that once sprawled across the state's most populous city."

"The years of oil-fueled booms and busts have given way to two decades of steady growth, as Anchorage's economy has expanded to include burgeoning retail, health-care and tourist industries. Since the mid-1990s, its air-cargo hub has become one of the three largest in the world."