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It's interesting to see on this map just how close the Megapolitan and Piedmont Atlantic really are to joining. They are only separated by a small swath of NE North Carolina between Raleigh and the VA Tidewater.
Some of these are a huge stretch. Denver and Salt Lake City are separated by hundreds of miles of mountains. Southern California is FAR more connected to the Bay Area than it is to Phoenix. And I'm not sure how Pittsburgh can be lumped in with Chicago.
Yeah, Chicago and Pittsburg are quite far apart and don't associate with one another directly as far as I can really tell.
I would rather think of it that there are 3 fairly dense corridors that tend to run into one another or butt up against each other.
That area is roughly 13+ million lined up, especially from Cleveland through Pittsburgh.
Then just to the south of that line of cities you have Indianapolis/Dayton/Cincinatti/Columbus that's another 8 million that forms a triangle with 100 mile long segments and Dayton sitting in the middle with its 1,000,000 metro.
It's fairly spread out, but it wasn't until I started taking car trips from Chicago to places east that I realized how much is in that region from Chicago/Milwaukee/Indianapolis over to the east towards Pittsburgh/Cincinnati
That area is roughly 13+ million lined up, especially from Cleveland through Pittsburgh.
Then just to the south of that line of cities you have Indianapolis/Dayton/Cincinatti/Columbus that's another 8 million that forms a triangle with 100 mile long segments and Dayton sitting in the middle with its 1,000,000 metro.
It's fairly spread out, but it wasn't until I started taking car trips from Chicago to places east that I realized how much is in that region from Chicago/Milwaukee/Indianapolis over to the east towards Pittsburgh/Cincinnati
That is basically what the article is getting at. That there are several dense corridors in the country and some of these corridors join together to form larger regions.
I don't understand the whole Twin Cities megapolitan area thing either. We are fairly isolated, so there isn't really a need for us to be part of one, but if anything we should be lumped with the Great Lakes (as the Twin Cities officially are), considering they are only a little over 2 hours from Lake Superior and the location follows the line of population from Chicago to Madison, Eau Claire, Rochester, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Duluth.
Some of these are a huge stretch. Denver and Salt Lake City are separated by hundreds of miles of mountains. Southern California is FAR more connected to the Bay Area than it is to Phoenix.
True, but I would like to see a bullet train connect Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego and Las Vegas. Especially SoCal to Vegas. That would be incredible.
Anyway, NorCal and SoCal are each other's biggest trading partners for sure, but they are evolving more into independent mega areas than connected as one, which most demographers never saw happening only 20 years ago but it makes sense in hindsight.
In any event, I made this map during a discussion in another forum discussing superregional economies and it's pretty amazing that a single non-national political administrative area(in this case a state) has 2 such economies.
As far as I could tell through research, California is the only non-national level government to have 2 regional economies that are this big(1.1 Trillion and 750 Billion), anywhere in the world.
2012 GDP Northern California and Southern California Mega Regions.
Southwest? that is too wide of a definition, you can only speak of California.
I totally see Southern ans Northern California merging into one gigalopolis within the next 75 to 100 years, maybe even less, the cities in the central valley are expanding at a rapid rate so sooner or later there will be one continous urbanized area from Sacramento down to Bakersfield just outside LA metro area. You can already see that on the map above.
True, but I would like to see a bullet train connect Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego and Las Vegas. Especially SoCal to Vegas. That would be incredible.
Anyway, NorCal and SoCal are each other's biggest trading partners for sure, but they are evolving more into independent mega areas than connected as one, which most demographers never saw happening only 20 years ago but it makes sense in hindsight.
In any event, I made this map during a discussion in another forum discussing superregional economies and it's pretty amazing that a single non-national political administrative area(in this case a state) has 2 such economies.
As far as I could tell through research, California is the only non-national level government to have 2 regional economies that are this big(1.1 Trillion and 750 Billion), anywhere in the world.
2012 GDP Northern California and Southern California Mega Regions.
If you're referring to solely within the state I would have to agree. Texas is another I think of with Houston apart of the Texas Triangle and the Gulf. Houston may be the only MSA that is included in two mega regions.
Southwest? that is too wide of a definition, you can only speak of California.
I totally see Southern ans Northern California merging into one gigalopolis within the next 75 to 100 years, maybe even less, the cities in the central valley are expanding at a rapid rate so sooner or later there will be one continous urbanized area from Sacramento down to Bakersfield just outside LA metro area. You can already see that on the map above.
I don't think this will ever happen due to geography. Most of the area in between is national parks or farm land. If gov did not to step in, I'm sure people would attempt to build scenic houses all the way down the CA coast.
I could see the area in Yolo county, etc becoming more developed between SF/Sac/Davis ... also the area around the military base around LA/SD becoming more developed.. outside of that, just not seeing it.
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