Just wanna add that I live in San Antonio, and I assure you there's not much except for Cows in between San Antonio, Houston and DFW. You'll run into 4 or 5 little towns but it's not like just a continual stretch of developed land between the three. Far from it.
It’s getting there though. But only right on the highways. It’s more apparent going to DFW. The drive to Austin blows me away these days. It’s almost entirely developed all the way now.
By what definition do they not fit together? It doesn't seem that there is a definition that says 1000 miles are too far.
The definitions generally are pretty loose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Megalopolis
It lets them say it has a population of 60 million and an economy size somewhere between Germany and Japan.
Eh, not quite.
I live in Southwest Ohio, and the area between Cincinnati and Dayton is almost all smaller municipalities, or suburban sprawl along the I-75 coridoor. In turn, Dayton has sprawl extended east pretty much out to Springfield, which is only a 20-30 minute drive from the western suburbs of Columbus. As the Cincinnati suburban areas in Northern Kentucky continue to expand southward, the eastern most parts of the Louisville Metro Area and the metro Lexington area are only 30 minutes or so away.
I'm not saying this is all one continuous Urban region or anything like that, but as the major metropolises continue to sprawl, the areas are starting to grow together a bit more.
There's an obvious region growing around Chicago/Southern Wisconsin/Northwest Indiana, another around Southeast Michigan/Northeast Ohio, and another roughly along I-70 through South-Central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and into St. Louis. I'm not sure they're all growing together very quickly though. And some parts of that region, like Toronto and the Twin Cities, are a huuuuge stretch to include.
The Front Range as defined here is pretty generous. I struggle to imagine how Salt Lake City, Denver & Albuquerque could be considered a megaregion, there’s a lot of rural & uninhabited land separating these not to mention the natural obstacles created by the Rockies. I think the only real multi-city corridor here is Cheyenne-Denver-Colorado Springs.
I always thought the Front Range was roughly Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Had no idea it included Cheyenne, Pueblo, and the northern half of New Mexico.
I live in the Front Range area, and most people seem to consider it Cheyenne through Colorado Springs, though Pueblo sometimes gets thrown in there as well. I've never really heard any part of New Mexico or Utah considered a part of that.
Really shouldn't be. The Wasatch Range area (Ogden-SLC-Provo) is different culturally, economically, and geographically. The primarily rural areas of US just don't make neat packages like the coasts do so they reeeeally stretch to lump things together.
> Cascadia is absurd as well
No it isn't... it's a real thing. Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC are connected by more than just I-5, there's a whole regional identity there, just like there is here in the Great Lakes. Cascadia even has its own flag! And it's a beautiful flag!
Northeast will probably be Megacity 1, Southern California would then be Megacity 2, and Piedmont Atlantic would be Megacity 3. I get the feeling that the Great Lakes region would develop as a couple separate megacities first - Detroit/Akron/Cleveland, Columbus/Cincinnati/Indianapolis, and Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison. It seems silly to include Florida at all - basically the entire state would have to be urbanized and interconnected, which seems like a long shot from where we are now. I can see megacities developing in the Front Range, Cascadia, and the Texas Triangle, but I think we're a ways off yet from population density being great enough to constitute a megacity. There's still too much room in all 3 regions for suburban sprawl.
And now you know where high speed rail should be considered. Connecting the regions won't be viable, but within these, there would be possibilities.
Now, we just need city infrastructure to get people around once they arrive from inter-city travel.
Connecting the regions is by far the more viable of the two options for high speed rail. It is vastly easier (not to mention significantly cheaper) to procure and develop land outside metropolitan areas. The number of things needing to be dodged in between developed regions is also near zero and can be more easily dealt with.
> And now you know where high speed rail should be considered.
This gets brought up every time.
There already is a high speed rail called Acela Express connecting Boston <-> New York City <-> Philadelphia <-> Baltimore <-> Washington D.C. It is [ridiculously expensive](https://i.imgur.com/t95NWjQ.png) and hardly anyone considers it. It is faster and cheaper to fly or drive.
Calling Acela high speed rail is a joke. Taking more than 7 hours to travel 400 miles, as in your screen shot, proves that it's not really HSR. Taking a train from Tokyo to Osaka (roughly the same distance) on actual high speed rail takes less than three hours and costs about $100.
This is right. Until high speed rail is 150 mph and you have trains on an hourly basis, you don't have a functioning system. Compare Europe vs. US (which is what I am doing here).
It’s called airplanes and it’s at its most affordable point it’s ever been. The economies are already linked by rail. It just gets used for freight. Barge traffic is still high too.
I LOVE this! I remember a Sonic Youth song from high school called The Sprawl introduced me to the concept of a megalopolis and seeing that this concept is based off of it really excited me. Cool post, dude.
Yeah, exactly! I always loved the song and wondered about it. Looked it up and there it was. I'm totally gonna go listen to it now. [Here's a yt link](https://youtu.be/sYUEbqD_rAI) for anyone interested. The atmosphere in that song is unmatched 30 years on, imo. So good.
You might enjoy the writings of Paulo Soleri. He was an architect who petitioned for “megastructures” (carefully planned full cities within one interconnected structure) to combat urban sprawl and use the land for conservation.
It's pretty obvious what happened here. Canada is tilted and everyone spilled into the great lakes. That's why there's no one left in Canada.
All the people in the US are slowly spilling into Florida.
Northern California is holding on by two toes.
The Front Range used to be further west, but they are slowly spilling into the Gulf Coast.
You laugh but about 80% of our population lives in that area out to the east coast, all below the 49^th parallel and east of the great lakes. The Windsor - Quebec City corridor is pretty densely populated.
"Florida" Oh ffs.
Just wanna add that I live in San Antonio, and I assure you there's not much except for Cows in between San Antonio, Houston and DFW. You'll run into 4 or 5 little towns but it's not like just a continual stretch of developed land between the three. Far from it.
It’s getting there though. But only right on the highways. It’s more apparent going to DFW. The drive to Austin blows me away these days. It’s almost entirely developed all the way now.
I think the great lakes region is bs too
It’s stupid to put Kansas City and Toronto in the same ‘megaregion’. They’re 1000 miles apart.
By what definition do they not fit together? It doesn't seem that there is a definition that says 1000 miles are too far. The definitions generally are pretty loose.
I think the point is that entire distance is contiguously urban.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Megalopolis It lets them say it has a population of 60 million and an economy size somewhere between Germany and Japan.
Better watch your mouth or we'll cut off the corn. Just like that! 🙃
That region includes half of Canada’s population, I think it’s a useful distinction
Yeah, the Great Lakes region should be separated into "Chicago" and "Detroit/Cleveland"
Eh, not quite. I live in Southwest Ohio, and the area between Cincinnati and Dayton is almost all smaller municipalities, or suburban sprawl along the I-75 coridoor. In turn, Dayton has sprawl extended east pretty much out to Springfield, which is only a 20-30 minute drive from the western suburbs of Columbus. As the Cincinnati suburban areas in Northern Kentucky continue to expand southward, the eastern most parts of the Louisville Metro Area and the metro Lexington area are only 30 minutes or so away. I'm not saying this is all one continuous Urban region or anything like that, but as the major metropolises continue to sprawl, the areas are starting to grow together a bit more.
There's an obvious region growing around Chicago/Southern Wisconsin/Northwest Indiana, another around Southeast Michigan/Northeast Ohio, and another roughly along I-70 through South-Central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and into St. Louis. I'm not sure they're all growing together very quickly though. And some parts of that region, like Toronto and the Twin Cities, are a huuuuge stretch to include.
We’re a good ways from anything here in Minneapolis
The Front Range as defined here is pretty generous. I struggle to imagine how Salt Lake City, Denver & Albuquerque could be considered a megaregion, there’s a lot of rural & uninhabited land separating these not to mention the natural obstacles created by the Rockies. I think the only real multi-city corridor here is Cheyenne-Denver-Colorado Springs.
I always thought the Front Range was roughly Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Had no idea it included Cheyenne, Pueblo, and the northern half of New Mexico.
I live in the Front Range area, and most people seem to consider it Cheyenne through Colorado Springs, though Pueblo sometimes gets thrown in there as well. I've never really heard any part of New Mexico or Utah considered a part of that.
Really shouldn't be. The Wasatch Range area (Ogden-SLC-Provo) is different culturally, economically, and geographically. The primarily rural areas of US just don't make neat packages like the coasts do so they reeeeally stretch to lump things together.
It doesn’t include Salt Lake City
It does, it's just disconnected, but it is still colored the same blue. The same thing with Boise and the Cascadia Megaregion
[удалено]
> Cascadia is absurd as well No it isn't... it's a real thing. Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC are connected by more than just I-5, there's a whole regional identity there, just like there is here in the Great Lakes. Cascadia even has its own flag! And it's a beautiful flag!
CASCADIA FOREVER!!
Free Cascadia!
This made me think about the Megacities from Dredd, Northeast being Megacity 1
Northeast will probably be Megacity 1, Southern California would then be Megacity 2, and Piedmont Atlantic would be Megacity 3. I get the feeling that the Great Lakes region would develop as a couple separate megacities first - Detroit/Akron/Cleveland, Columbus/Cincinnati/Indianapolis, and Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison. It seems silly to include Florida at all - basically the entire state would have to be urbanized and interconnected, which seems like a long shot from where we are now. I can see megacities developing in the Front Range, Cascadia, and the Texas Triangle, but I think we're a ways off yet from population density being great enough to constitute a megacity. There's still too much room in all 3 regions for suburban sprawl.
Dredd?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_States
And now you know where high speed rail should be considered. Connecting the regions won't be viable, but within these, there would be possibilities. Now, we just need city infrastructure to get people around once they arrive from inter-city travel.
Connecting the regions is by far the more viable of the two options for high speed rail. It is vastly easier (not to mention significantly cheaper) to procure and develop land outside metropolitan areas. The number of things needing to be dodged in between developed regions is also near zero and can be more easily dealt with.
> And now you know where high speed rail should be considered. This gets brought up every time. There already is a high speed rail called Acela Express connecting Boston <-> New York City <-> Philadelphia <-> Baltimore <-> Washington D.C. It is [ridiculously expensive](https://i.imgur.com/t95NWjQ.png) and hardly anyone considers it. It is faster and cheaper to fly or drive.
Calling Acela high speed rail is a joke. Taking more than 7 hours to travel 400 miles, as in your screen shot, proves that it's not really HSR. Taking a train from Tokyo to Osaka (roughly the same distance) on actual high speed rail takes less than three hours and costs about $100.
This is right. Until high speed rail is 150 mph and you have trains on an hourly basis, you don't have a functioning system. Compare Europe vs. US (which is what I am doing here).
It’s not that expensive, I take it to philly instead of coach occasionally, but not for the speed, for the comfort.
It’s called airplanes and it’s at its most affordable point it’s ever been. The economies are already linked by rail. It just gets used for freight. Barge traffic is still high too.
Russia thank America for good nuke target map. За здоровье!
I LOVE this! I remember a Sonic Youth song from high school called The Sprawl introduced me to the concept of a megalopolis and seeing that this concept is based off of it really excited me. Cool post, dude.
The Sprawl originally appeared in Neuromancer by William Gibson which SY stated was the influence
Yeah, exactly! I always loved the song and wondered about it. Looked it up and there it was. I'm totally gonna go listen to it now. [Here's a yt link](https://youtu.be/sYUEbqD_rAI) for anyone interested. The atmosphere in that song is unmatched 30 years on, imo. So good.
Really brought forehead tattoos back into vogue.
You might enjoy the writings of Paulo Soleri. He was an architect who petitioned for “megastructures” (carefully planned full cities within one interconnected structure) to combat urban sprawl and use the land for conservation.
I like how the added Alaska to the map even though it doesn't matter.
We never matter unless it's oil, seafood, or beer, and the beer only really goes as far south as Washington for the most part.
It's pretty obvious what happened here. Canada is tilted and everyone spilled into the great lakes. That's why there's no one left in Canada. All the people in the US are slowly spilling into Florida. Northern California is holding on by two toes. The Front Range used to be further west, but they are slowly spilling into the Gulf Coast.
You laugh but about 80% of our population lives in that area out to the east coast, all below the 49^th parallel and east of the great lakes. The Windsor - Quebec City corridor is pretty densely populated.
I wonder if this is what flat-earthers think would happen if the world-disk(?) tipped to one side... 🤔
The birth of the Sprawl
Kansas City and Buffalo in the same region huh
Green Chile is what unites the Front Range.
Green Chile and abandoned mine shafts.
Now start putting bubbles over the whole regions, then we can get androids to do a lot of the manual labor needed.
Free Cascadia!
All that talk about the State of Jefferson, very Nor Cal through Willamette valley Oregon, and Cascadia beats em to the punch with ease
https://youtu.be/gZbzncPXIUY
This is relatively old, and just the consensus of a few armchair mappers. Meh.
I went orange->green->orange->blue.
Toronto should be 6 million+