Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Megalopolis refers to a cluster of densely populated cities stretching over a large region. The late geographer Jean Gottmann (1915–94) popularized the term in the early 1960s to classify the region from Washington to Boston, including New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Gottmann urged researchers to view the megalopolis as a novel urban form that is multinucleated and multifunctional. Population growth fueled suburbanization and suburbs later became their own independent and autonomous regions that merged with the central city to form an extensive metropolitan region on the United States East Coast. In 1950, the megalopolis had a population of 32 million inhabitants. Today, the megalopolis includes more than 44 million people, 16 percent of the entire US population. Four of the largest CMSAs (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas) in the United States overlap with the megalopolis and account for over 38 million of the megalopolis's population. The four CMSAs are New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island, Washington–Baltimore, Philadelphia–Wilmington–Atlantic City, and Boston–Worcester–Lawrence. The implication of Gottmann's study of the megalopolis was that “[w]e must abandon the idea of the city as a tightly settled and organized unit in which people, activities, and riches are crowded into a very small area clearly separated from its nonurban surroundings. Every city ... log in or subscribe to read full text