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The distances here are ~400 miles at most from Nashville to Charlotte. NSH-ATL and ATL-CLT are ~250 miles each. Each 'edge' of the triangle has growing, mid-size metro areas in between as well with Greenville, Spartanburg and Athens between CLT and ATL, Chattanooga between ATL and NSH, and Asheville and Knoxville between NSH and CLT. It will never be as continuous as the NE megalopolis but there could be significant fill-in in the in between towns and cities with climate change and possibly an increased move to smaller towns from major cities because of Covid
Population increase yes. Megalopolis? Highly doubt it. This is not like the coastal plains where you can keep on building and pack people to live in close quarters. The geographic and topographic challenges of the southern Appalachians mean that a good part of this region is not amenable to human habitation, let alone sprawling developments.
Depends on how you define it I guess, but this region is more spread out and less populated than the Texas Triangle, which I see as 5 cities in driving distance, not a "megalopolis".
The creator of the megaregions seems a bit desperate to find a home for major metro areas, despite that they are sometimes significantly disconnected from the others. How is SLC actually connected to The Front Range? How is Boise connected to the PNW? How is Kansas City actually connected to the Great Lakes when it's over 400 miles to the nearest one?
In the case of the Piedmont Megaregion, It's really easy to connect the dots from Birmingham to Raleigh in a daisy chain of urbanized areas, but it's a stretch to connect those dots to Memphis and Nashville. Frankly, it makes more sense to me to continue the Piedmont to Richmond than it does to loop back up the west side of the Appalachians outside of the Piedmont.
It might make more sense if Birmingham was a connection point between two Megaregions (like Houston is) with the other being a MidSouth Megaregion being made out of Birmingham/Huntsville/Chattanooga/Nashville/Memphis/Knoxville/Louisville/Lexington.
Or...maybe it makes more sense to just not try to hammer every significant metro area into a megaregion?
I think Nashville is more likely to increase its connectivity with other metro areas along the I-65 corridor (i.e. Huntsville/Decatur to the south and Bowling Green to the north) than with the Piedmont metro areas further east across multiple sets of mountains and valleys. The Cumberland Plateau east of metro Nashville has very rugged topography that is not conducive to large scale development.
It is an interesting question, and one that I’ve pondered as well. I believe the I-85 corridor is well on its way, having both grown the key city nodes, expanded true metro boundaries, as well developed much of the interstitial areas in the corridor. There are still notable development gaps between Commerce, GA and Greenville, SC, (Anderson is a notable in-between) and between Spartanburg and Gastonia, NC (Gaffney a notable in-between, wave to the big Peach). Kannapolis to Thomasville has grown its “in-between” but still remains fairly rural. I see that changing gradually over the next decades. From there it is pretty solid (still growing) between the Triad and Triangle. There is a whole lot of nothing between the Triangle and Petersburg, VA/Richmond metro South. All the cities between Atlanta and the Triangle have benefited by being in their locations along the line.
I’ve seen similar growth and benefit up I-75 between Atlanta and Chattanooga. I believe there will likely be a lower connectivity along I-24 (potentially “insurmountable?”) due to the mountains heading to Nashville. Similarly I-40 development connectivity will be strained between Knoxville and Asheville due to the mountains. The Interstate has closed several times in the past due to “acts of nature.” Even the ~60 mile approaches to those two cities, from the east and west respectively, have challenging geographies.
I have not seen a lot of connectivity being added on the I-20 corridor from Atlanta to Birmingham or ATL to Augusta. I don’t have a good answer as to why, or a good case as to why not. I don’t see Nashville to Huntsville or Raleigh to Richmond filling in any time soon. There is currently too much rural distance. I’d need to see a good economic case to convince me otherwise. Nashville to Chattanooga has a long way to go, even before the mountains come into play.
A cool way I’ve used to view the current state of “Megalopolises” is using Google Earth night view. You can really see how the developed areas light up and connect.
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