When are they going to start calling BosWash one continuous urban area? (suburbs)

[TheWereRabbit]

I was doing my daily Wikipedia creeping and found that they rank cities size in 3 different ways. The city itself (which everyone outside of Houston knows is meaningless), The metro area, and the continuous urban area. The urban area seems to just be a little more (or in some cases less than the metro area). So, I was wondering why this alleged BosWash dealy isn't considered one urban area?

List of urban areas by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and also World's largest urban agglomerations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Would you say the suburbs of the cities in the northeast corridor touch? I think there is a little space between Providence and Hartford but other than that it is pretty much continuous.

[radraja]

Ehh. I wouldn't classify the entire northeast coast as one urban area. It just doesn't work in my mind.

They may be touching on the edges, but that doesn't mean much. There are still cultural differences between the cities. Different accents. Different local identities. I mean, you can't say that Boston and Washington DC are really alike enough to be a part of the same metro (or CUA..whatever the abbreviation is). They're completely different places.

[neonwattagelimit]

There are spaces between NYC and Philly in some places, and between Philly and Baltimore. Most of those spaces are far from desolate, and the exurbs are pushing into all of them, but they're there.

However, I think urban areas are defined by commuting patterns. So, until the day when we invent a laser-ray holographic transmutation device and a dude can step into a plexiglass box in Bethesda, Maryland, push a button, and be at his office in Boston, I'm pretty sure BosWash will continue to be several distinct metros.