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The Piedmont in the southeast especially the Atlanta to Raleigh part, Unlike the Chi-pitts concept you can clearly see them connecting. The region still needs to densify but it's also still growing.
I have access to a tractor. We should all try to move the dirt off the mountains and redistribute it into the ocean to create more flat land and create a nice little island off the coast. I wonder how long it would take me to do that. I'll start with one hill.
I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in our lifetime, a company or corporation of some sort tries to alter the geographic landscape like that.
We should start off by paving over all of San Francisco Bay with concrete. Since people complain about the hills in San Mateo and Alameda Counties, we should push the dirt right into the Bay and build low income housing. This would have an awesome effect on the climate in the region, not to mention CA's water supply.
Can you imagine how epic it would be if we can suddenly shift the geography like that?
Imagine creating Mt. Everest right next to New York City?
Imagine creating a land bridge from the East Coast to Europe?
Imagine recreating the Bering Land Bridge from Alaska to Russia?
Hell, I'd create a large island off the coast of San Diego, and it will virtually have the same weather year round. Wicked!
The swath from Madison/Quad Cities/Milwaukee over through Chicago, southern Michigan, Indy, South Bend, Detroit, Fort Wayne, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Youngstown, Pittsburgh is fairly dense. More so than I would have thought.
That's 38,800,000 people in a triangle shaped area around 600 miles tip to tip from east to west and 250 miles or so at it's end points north to south.
21,000,000 of that is in a fairly tight swath from Milwaukee down through Chicago and over across southern Michigan and northern Indiana to Detroit. 100 miles north to south and 250 miles east to west.
The midwest at one time had the potential to be dense. Most cities in the midwest had density of 10,000 or more and cities were relatively close. It could still be densely populated as the northeast but the midwest is growing very slowly. I believe the growth rates for the midwest are 5% while the west coast, interior west and south all had growth rates of 8% or more.
As of now, the closest region to achieving density of the northeast is California. Right now there is 40 milion people in California but soon it could be 70 or so million. California also seems to like having density so it wouldnt be that much of a problem getting california to be densely populated.
I was thinking SoCal, but then I reneged. It is already a humongous sprawl so, even with infill, none of it will ever have the dense feel of Boston, New York or Philadelphia.
When a little kid and my Dad needed to go to downtown LA for an errand, outside of the 6x6 block +/- Financial District, there was usually metered parking available next to the sidewalks. That has changed, but outer edges of downtown are still not that crowded, probably because they are still very seedy.
The swath from Madison/Quad Cities/Milwaukee over through Chicago, southern Michigan, Indy, South Bend, Detroit, Fort Wayne, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Youngstown, Pittsburgh is fairly dense. More so than I would have thought.
That's 38,800,000 people in a triangle shaped area around 600 miles tip to tip from east to west and 250 miles or so at it's end points north to south.
21,000,000 of that is in a fairly tight swath from Milwaukee down through Chicago and over across southern Michigan and northern Indiana to Detroit. 100 miles north to south and 250 miles east to west.
I live within some of the less dense areas of this triangle (Peoria) and I find this statistic very interesting, some Illinois towns outside of Chicago are growing definitely. Should be interesting to see down the line.
I'd point out that the Megalopolis is far longer than it is wide, and someone has already mentioned how rural large parts of Upstate NY and the between-Philly-and-Pittsbrugh swath of PA are, though the small cities scattered throughout are (or were, before population declines in some of them) very densely built.
The big two in California probably come closest. LA is more dense than Detroit, if memory serves. Still gotta do a lot of infill though, and with the occasionally rugged terrain, deserts, and the inverted delta in the north, the patches of density will forever (good) be broken up by some near-wilderness areas.
The coasts of Florida boost big population numbers, and the density will go up as well - they are constrained from going too far inland by the Everglades, Okeechobee, and some rather large protected areas, so again, they are destined to grow far more dense.
It would take a century, and a rethink in growth policies, but the I-85 corridor from Atlanta to Raleigh does have that potential as well. It's a long, narrow sprawlopolis strung out along the interstate, with a few sizable rural breaks, and the development patterns in some of the cities (Upstate South Carolina might actually be the worst violator on that front) is very, very wasteful. But *some* of the cities - Atlanta (city proper), Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Durham are starting to get serious about infill and mass transit, and regional rail is well underway in the northern half of that nascent mini megalopolis. The one thing that region has that might elevate its' potential somewhat - a growing interdependence between the major metro economies in the region: tech, biotech, r&d, academia, financial services, manufacturing, distribution are all major, major economic sectors is some part of that region, but not through all of it, and this is crating a certain degree of symbiosis between those metros - the brain trust is somewhere, the venture capital is somewhere else, the manufacturing muscle is somewhere else, and having 2 of the nations 10 or 15 busiest international airports doesn't hurt, especially when the unrealized capacity at 2 additional airports in the region is factored in. 2 hours from the ruggedest mountains in the East, and 4 hours from the beach is a draw, as well as the relative inexpensiveness of the region. Some of the cities are really ramping it up with the infill, though some others (Greensboro, Raleigh, Greenville-Spartanburg) have a long, long way to go. The smaller cities (25,000-75,000 populations) that line up every 20-30 miles or so between each of the big metros are - in some cases - starting to grow at an accelerating pace, and a few of those smaller cities can boast a major HQ or two as well - Lowes Hardware and Food Lion are both homegrown, and are both in two of the smaller cities (~30,000 each) in that corridor. So that's a not-in-out-lifetime, but still worth keeping your eye on region. There's an abundance of very good universities - Ga Tech, UGA, Clemson, Davidson, UNC Charlotte, Wake Forest, UNC, Duke, NC State - are the most prominent, but there are more than a few dozen smaller ones as well - in the region, and that certianly doesn't hurt.
California's 2 emerging megalopoli are really interesting because they are both growing fast but not towards each other, and these are by far the two largest concentrations of population in the West.
Southern California Mega Region, 2011 Population
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside 18,081,569
San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos 3,140,069
Bakersfield-Delano 851,710
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta 426,878
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles 271,969
El Centro 177,057 Total Population: 22,949,252
Northern California Mega Region, 2011 Population
San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland 7,563,460
Sacramento-Arden Arcade-Yuba City 2,489,230
Stockton 696,214
Modesto 518,522
Salinas 421,898
Merced 259,898
Chico 220,266
Clearlake 64,323 Total Population: 12,233,811
What is south central texas??? Austin/San Antonio???
I'm saying that the South Central region in the U.S. is the same as Texas.
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