The South's New Megalopolis

"There are 13 million people living around the interstates of the Piedmont region --- 20 percent of the Southeast's population." With Atlanta as the hub of this new southern megalopolis, demographers and planners are predicting continued rapid growth. "Unlike the West and Northeast, there are few practical, political or geographical boundaries to the area's growth. There are no truly towering mountains blocking development, and usable land is more abundant. Federally owned lands do not block migration into rural areas, as they do in the West."