Megapolitan Thinking for the 21st Century

"More than 200 million people, two-thirds the U.S. population, already live in 10 megapolitan regions — six east of the Mississippi, four west. And the "megas" are gaining population more rapidly than the United States as a whole — likely to add 85 million more people and a gargantuan $33 trillion in construction spending by 2040, reports Robert Lang of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute.

"Most massive of these massive population agglomerations — now 50 million people strong — is the Northeast Corridor from New England to Northern Virginia, the focus of geographer Jean Gottman's seminal 1961 book "Megalopolis." But the Midwest mega (Pittsburgh-Detroit-Chicago) has 40 million people, the Southland (Los Angeles to Las Vegas) 22 million, and the Piedmont (Charlotte-Atlanta) 19 million. The six "smallest" megas are massive enough on their own: the I-35 corridor (San Antonio-Dallas-Kansas City), 15 million people; the Florida Peninsula (Tampa-Orlando-Miami), 14 million; the Gulf Coast (New Orleans-Houston) and NorCal (San Francisco and Central Valley), 12 million each; Cascadia (Seattle-Portland), 7 million; and the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix), 5 million.

"All will have passed the 10-million mark by 2040. But how will the projected growth be accommodated in metro regions already choking on highway congestion and approaching build-out under today's low-density patterns?"