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I grew up in the middle of the region (Charlotte). Family and friends meant that I spent a lot of time up and down the I-85 corridor from Atlanta to Raleigh, and can say that Atlanta, Greenville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston and the Triangle are all places I know well. There's a kind of interconnection between those cities that would be extremely difficult to quantify, but if you live in the region, you know it nonetheless.
By contrast, the whole time I was growing up, it was a lot more rare to travel far southeast or northwest from that corridor. The cultural and business interconnections between the coast and the I-85 emergent megalopolis are weak, and likewise for E Tennessee, though the connection to SE TN is a bit stronger in the Atlanta area (only), and the coastal connection is a bit stronger in the RDU area (only).
If I'd consider I-85 to be the region's core from Atlanta to Durham, the NON-I-85 cities that I would say do solidly belong within the region are Rome and Athens GA, Rock Hill SC, Asheville, Hickory, Winston-Salem, Raleigh NC, and Danville VA. Beyond that it gets iffy, to me.
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I haven't been South of Charlotte toward Greenville/Spartanburg in years. Does Charlotte feel connected to Upstate SC or is it some years off? Likewise, is the Upstate connecting to Atlanta in the same way?
Physically, the Upstate is an island sitting between the larger metropolitan areas of Atlanta and Charlotte with plenty of rural land separating them, however there are more connections between the cities than most "outsiders" may realize.
For example, many Upstate business and leisure travelers utilize the short distance to cheaper airfare. The recent announcement that Southwest will begin flying from the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in March may significantly impact that statistic.
Other common connections between the cities include relational ties (family and friends). Many (if not most) Upstate residents have family and/or close friends living in Atlanta and Charlotte.
As already mentioned, there is also a strong business connection between the cities.
One final connection I'll mention is weekend tourism. Greenville leaders have successfully marketed the city and regional attractions directly to residents in the Atlanta and Charlotte metro areas, greatly enhancing the Upstate's exposure and reputation. One example is the 2 hours to Greenville campaign. It is very normal to see several cars from the Atlanta area in downtown at any given moment. Likewise, but to a much greater extent, both Atlanta and Charlotte have successfully marketed their unique attractions to Upstate residents.
I definitely agree that the metros of the Crescent to Upstate to Atlanta to Birmingham are definitely there. I also believe that the heavy hitters of the region, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Birmingham bring in other areas. Below is a list of cities I thin each metro brings in:
Raleigh-Durham: Fayetteville, Greenville, Rocky Mount, and Goldsboro
Charlotte: Hickory, Columbia-Augusta
Atlanta: Dalton, Athens, Rome, Macon, Columbus(?)
Birmingham: Montgomerey, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville
I think the only areas of extreme question would be the coastal areas. But when you take account the economic ties, the ties become even stronger.
It seems that most people feel that mainland Carolina and northern GA are definitely apart of the mega region. However, I wonder, if you include northern GA, how can you exclude northern AL? If you include northern GA, then you most likely include Columbus, which shares a CSA with Auburn, and I-85 goes down to Montgomery? Just sayin...
It seems that most people feel that mainland Carolina and northern GA are definitely apart of the mega region. However, I wonder, if you include northern GA, how can you exclude northern AL? If you include northern GA, then you most likely include Columbus, which shares a CSA with Auburn, and I-85 goes down to Montgomery? Just sayin...
Personally, I consider the region
1st - By the following core cities: Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Greenville, Atlanta. The reason - if you drive from Raleigh to Atlanta, you don't encounter much separation between them. You leave the last exurb of one, and are within 20 miles moving into an exurb of the next one. There's a bit more of a gap between Greenville and Atlnata, but the significant towns between (Anderson and Athens) are more bypassed by the interstate. There's is some degree of trans-metro commuting: for example, Burlington and Salisbury in NC are home to some number of commuter couples - one works in Charlotte, the other in Greensboro or Winston (or Greensboro/Durham-RTP, in the case of Burlington). There are a fair number of these towns lines up pretty evenly, about 10-20 miles apart, from Smithfield NC to Anderson SC.
2nd - the SE boundary: When you travel roughly 30-40 miles SE of I-85, you're pretty much out of the region, in any urban sense at least, and in most places away from the major cities, it's more like 5 or 10 miles. The sandhills region of SC and NC is something everyone should drive through - beautiful, but very sparsely populated. The gap between Columbia and upstate SC, between Columbia and Charlotte, between Charlotte and Fayetteville, and the area centered around the Uwharrie National Forest in central NC (there are actual protected wilderness areas in there, just as an indication of just how empty that part of NC is, and will stay) is very pronounced. To bring coastal NC/SC into the region would require filling in a lot of that space with development, and I can't see that happening at all. The towns in that region - places like Winnsboro, Cheraw, Bennettsville, Hamlet, Rockingham, Lumberton - are pretty seriously moribund, economically, and won't be turning into much of anything other than what they are now.
I don't know how connected the coasts of either state really are. Wilmington is somewhat tied into Raleigh via I-40; it's rather disconnected from Fayetteville and very disconnected from Charlotte. Any port/manufacturing traffic coming out of western NC goes down 77 to Charleston, via Columbia and I-26: that route to Charleston is actually faster than a trip to Wilmington from Charlotte. Interestingly, there were two proposals to construct an interstate linking Asheville-Gastonia-Charlotte-Lumberton-Wilmington in the 1960s and 70s; the first proposal (early 60s) was dismissed by the federal government, the second (roundabout 1970) seemed close to approval when the 1972 gas crisis hit and blew a lot of construction plans out of the water.
3rd - I'd consider the NW limit of the region to really be the Blue Ridge. It's a formidable barrier especially in western NC. Asheville is part of the broadcast market for Greenville-Spartanburg - they're an hour apart. Hickory is part of Charlotte's broadcast market. Most of western NC, out to about Waynesville, is closely tied into Greenville, Charlotte, or Winston-Salem, depending on where you are. The SW part of NC gets a little fuzzier, but again, that's an extremely rural area, and likely to remain that way.
I lived in Boone NC for 12 years. Everyone up there knew their way around Asheville, Charlotte, and Winston. Tennessee (with the close exception of Johnson City) was another planet - whether business, shopping, medical care, education - no one went over there.
4th - I wouldn't consider the NE and SW limit to stretch much beyond Raleigh or Atlanta. I don't know how tied into the region the AL cities and towns really are. They are fairly widely separated, and apart from Birmingham and Huntsville, I don't see the smaller towns (Auburn - possible exception) blossoming into bigger cities or towns; they don't really have that much gravity yet, and won't for quite a while.
Columbus - maybe, but as with cities like Fayetteville or Jacksonville NC, the growth there is military, and tends to rise and fall depending on what's happening in that world. Those cities won't really stand on their own until they have something else of equal weight, which doesn't seem to be happening. Fayetteville's population went up dramatically from a series of very large annexations - had it now gobbled up a third of Cumberland County, it's population would've actually dropped.
Similarly, when you get much past Raleigh to the NE, you start getting into parts of NC with falling populations - a swath of rural depopulation in the area between Raleigh and Chesapeake. Of the big 10 in NC, Greenville is 4th fastest growing, after Cary, Raleigh and Charlotte, but it's a flaming exception to the general rule in E NC, and the area between there and Raleigh is Wilson, plus about 70 miles of absolutely nothing.
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I guess you could make a case that Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Columbus, Columbia, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Greenville NC or Fayetteville NC are part of this 'region,' but it's certainly more of a stretch. And connections between those cities - blue - are non-existant. Which is not the case with Atlanta, Athens, SC Upstate, Charlotte, Asheville, Greensboro-Winston-Salem, Burlington, Chapel Hill, Durham, or Raleigh/Cary.
Obviously, the core of the region is very well-poised for future prominence: if Atlanta, GSP, Charlotte, Triand, and Triangle are the big 5 centers of the region, between them you have 5 international airports, one of which is the world's busiest, another in the top 20. Several large research universities, the 5th or 6th largest tech/r&d hub in the US, one metro (RDU) that famously has per-capita the highest concentration of PhD's in the world, the largest or 2nd largest financial center, the media concentration of Atlanta, and in Raleigh and Atlanta two of the largest accumulations of venture capital in the South. The growth that will come will hopefully not be stupid, ugly growth, which would essentially ruin everything. If the drive from Raleigh to Atlanta looks like the Jersey Tpk in 10 years, I think someone, somewhere failed miserably.
I know that one of the coined terms for the region is Charlanta after the two largest metros but it doesn't describe the east/west terminus of the megalopolis. If one considers Birmingham the Western terminus and Raleigh the Eastern terminus, the region could be called Ralingham. If Atlanta is the Western terminus, it could be called Ralanta.
Before you get your panties in a wad, Charlotteans, I am just playing with some fun names.
Now that I am thinking of it, the Piedmont Crescent in NC could be named Charleigh.
The suburban counties of Augusta and Columbia (Aiken and Lexington) touch each other. Then there's the I-20/I-77 corridor between Charlotte, Columbia, and Augusta.
And the I-26 corridor fuses together metro Columba and metro Charleston forming the Triple-C megalopolis (Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston), which connects to the Triple-A megalopolis (Atlanta, Athens, Augusta). The Triple-C megalopolis and the Triple-A megalopolis are part of the bigger "Charlanta" corridor. megaregion that includes most of eastern Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and parts of eastern Tennessee.
If only there was continuous urbanization throughout the entire region, then it might really be a megalopolis and not a somewhat ridiculous attempt for the South to have something to compete with BosWash. In most cases there is 1-2 hours of rural undeveloped land between the urbanized portions of each metro (I know technically the "metro" area spreads out much farther than that but I am talking the developed portions).
1st - By the following core cities: Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Greenville, Atlanta. The reason - if you drive from Raleigh to Atlanta, you don't encounter much separation between them. You leave the last exurb of one, and are within 20 miles moving into an exurb of the next one. There's a bit more of a gap between Greenville and Atlnata, but the significant towns between (Anderson and Athens) are more bypassed by the interstate. There's is some degree of trans-metro commuting: for example, Burlington and Salisbury in NC are home to some number of commuter couples - one works in Charlotte, the other in Greensboro or Winston (or Greensboro/Durham-RTP, in the case of Burlington). There are a fair number of these towns lines up pretty evenly, about 10-20 miles apart, from Smithfield NC to Anderson SC.
2nd - the SE boundary: When you travel roughly 30-40 miles SE of I-85, you're pretty much out of the region, in any urban sense at least, and in most places away from the major cities, it's more like 5 or 10 miles. The sandhills region of SC and NC is something everyone should drive through - beautiful, but very sparsely populated. The gap between Columbia and upstate SC, between Columbia and Charlotte, between Charlotte and Fayetteville, and the area centered around the Uwharrie National Forest in central NC (there are actual protected wilderness areas in there, just as an indication of just how empty that part of NC is, and will stay) is very pronounced. To bring coastal NC/SC into the region would require filling in a lot of that space with development, and I can't see that happening at all. The towns in that region - places like Winnsboro, Cheraw, Bennettsville, Hamlet, Rockingham, Lumberton - are pretty seriously moribund, economically, and won't be turning into much of anything other than what they are now.
I don't know how connected the coasts of either state really are. Wilmington is somewhat tied into Raleigh via I-40; it's rather disconnected from Fayetteville and very disconnected from Charlotte. Any port/manufacturing traffic coming out of western NC goes down 77 to Charleston, via Columbia and I-26: that route to Charleston is actually faster than a trip to Wilmington from Charlotte. Interestingly, there were two proposals to construct an interstate linking Asheville-Gastonia-Charlotte-Lumberton-Wilmington in the 1960s and 70s; the first proposal (early 60s) was dismissed by the federal government, the second (roundabout 1970) seemed close to approval when the 1972 gas crisis hit and blew a lot of construction plans out of the water.
3rd - I'd consider the NW limit of the region to really be the Blue Ridge. It's a formidable barrier especially in western NC. Asheville is part of the broadcast market for Greenville-Spartanburg - they're an hour apart. Hickory is part of Charlotte's broadcast market. Most of western NC, out to about Waynesville, is closely tied into Greenville, Charlotte, or Winston-Salem, depending on where you are. The SW part of NC gets a little fuzzier, but again, that's an extremely rural area, and likely to remain that way.
I lived in Boone NC for 12 years. Everyone up there knew their way around Asheville, Charlotte, and Winston. Tennessee (with the close exception of Johnson City) was another planet - whether business, shopping, medical care, education - no one went over there.
4th - I wouldn't consider the NE and SW limit to stretch much beyond Raleigh or Atlanta. I don't know how tied into the region the AL cities and towns really are. They are fairly widely separated, and apart from Birmingham and Huntsville, I don't see the smaller towns (Auburn - possible exception) blossoming into bigger cities or towns; they don't really have that much gravity yet, and won't for quite a while.
Columbus - maybe, but as with cities like Fayetteville or Jacksonville NC, the growth there is military, and tends to rise and fall depending on what's happening in that world. Those cities won't really stand on their own until they have something else of equal weight, which doesn't seem to be happening. Fayetteville's population went up dramatically from a series of very large annexations - had it now gobbled up a third of Cumberland County, it's population would've actually dropped.
Similarly, when you get much past Raleigh to the NE, you start getting into parts of NC with falling populations - a swath of rural depopulation in the area between Raleigh and Chesapeake. Of the big 10 in NC, Greenville is 4th fastest growing, after Cary, Raleigh and Charlotte, but it's a flaming exception to the general rule in E NC, and the area between there and Raleigh is Wilson, plus about 70 miles of absolutely nothing.
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I guess you could make a case that Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Columbus, Columbia, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Greenville NC or Fayetteville NC are part of this 'region,' but it's certainly more of a stretch. And connections between those cities - blue - are non-existant. Which is not the case with Atlanta, Athens, SC Upstate, Charlotte, Asheville, Greensboro-Winston-Salem, Burlington, Chapel Hill, Durham, or Raleigh/Cary.
Obviously, the core of the region is very well-poised for future prominence: if Atlanta, GSP, Charlotte, Triand, and Triangle are the big 5 centers of the region, between them you have 5 international airports, one of which is the world's busiest, another in the top 20. Several large research universities, the 5th or 6th largest tech/r&d hub in the US, one metro (RDU) that famously has per-capita the highest concentration of PhD's in the world, the largest or 2nd largest financial center, the media concentration of Atlanta, and in Raleigh and Atlanta two of the largest accumulations of venture capital in the South. The growth that will come will hopefully not be stupid, ugly growth, which would essentially ruin everything. If the drive from Raleigh to Atlanta looks like the Jersey Tpk in 10 years, I think someone, somewhere failed miserably.
One of the best analysis I've seen on this topic. Most of the cities you listed in blue are tied to the region due to the "gravitational" pull of the anchor cities. I guess that's why this area is coined an emerging mega region.
Now remember, a mega region is different than a megalopolis(or is megapolitan?) area. The latter is centered on non-stop development. A mega region does factor in rural connections. It is based on economic and cultural affinity as well as development. In that sense, you can see how outliers such as East TN and the Coastal areas are connected to the region.
I know that one of the coined terms for the region is Charlanta after the two largest metros but it doesn't describe the east/west terminus of the megalopolis. If one considers Birmingham the Western terminus and Raleigh the Eastern terminus, the region could be called Ralingham. If Atlanta is the Western terminus, it could be called Ralanta.
Before you get your panties in a wad, Charlotteans, I am just playing with some fun names.
Now that I am thinking of it, the Piedmont Crescent in NC could be named Charleigh.
I've actually heard of it called Chaleighboro.
The BosWash name is actually quite interesting in that it neglects NYC in the name which is the largest and most economically important metro in the US.
And the I-26 corridor fuses together metro Columba and metro Charleston forming the Triple-C megalopolis (Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston), which connects to the Triple-A megalopolis (Atlanta, Athens, Augusta).
Those areas aren't anything close to a megalopolis, even loosely speaking.
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