America’s 7 mega regions.
 

I was looking at a map of Amtrak’s system and noticed that this country seems to be split up into 7 large regions;

1. Atlanta - Boston Corridor (Extending as far west as Cleveland)
2. Miami - Tampa - Orlando - Jacksonville Cluster
4. Houston - San Antonio - Austin - Dallas - Oklahoma City Cluster
5. Chicago - Minneapolis - Kansas City - St Louis - Cincinnati - Detroit Spoke
6. San Francisco - LA - San Diego - Phoenix - Las Vegas - Sacramento Cluster
7. Seattle - Portland - Boise - Spokane Cluster

Salt Lake City, Denver, Nashville and New Orleans would be the big independents it seems, although there could be an argument for an eighth region covering a New Orleans - Memphis - Nashville Cluster

I looked at it from a geographic perspective primarily. I took culture in to account some, but not that much.

OK, I thought I was on topic here... crickets..

I guess Birmingham is just floating in the abyss if you're going to somehow lump New Orleans, Memphis, & Nashville together.

First time I'm seeing Oklahoma City included in the Texas Triangle.

What happened to "mega region" #3?

I don't know. These seem like very big stretches. Boston-Atlanta-Cleveland megaregion? That's too much. There are little gaps here and there between Boston and Washington. There are bigger gaps south of there, like from Richmond to Raleigh. THen in some of these other megaregions, you have gaps even bigger than that.

Why not just say that the entire US is a megaregion?

i think of new orleans being more connected along I-10 towards houston and towards florida than I-55...theres a lot of half-abandoned mississippi landscape between memphis and new orleans (new orleans used to be more tied in south to north via st louis) nashville more tied in towards atlanta (and the Kentucky/midwest for that mattter). atlanta sort of consolidated southern gravity towards it one way and texas the other and feels like memphis is sort of the part of the south suspended in between.

There's a big swath of Alligator Country between New Orleans and much of the rest of Southern Louisiana, let alone Houston.

https://www.trbimg.com/img-147291155...c-20160903/837


There have already been various breakdowns of the MEGA regions as they are emerging beyond metro regions.

The Mega regions still have a TON and I mean truly endless acres of nothing or farmland between population centers before they become something like the Pearl River Delta or Greater shanghai.

The closest one we have to that is the Bos-Wash corridor in the northeast (although its still not completely connected) or maybe the conglomeration of LA-riverside and San-Diego/Tijuana but there is still a lot of space between the two due to mountains and some military reserves.

If you we are talking in terms of rail, the best plan is to expand local services among the major metros/csa's and once those regions are built up with local rail and transportation then you move on to connecting the MSA's together via High speed.

So you need, for example, complete local rail networks in Socal, Vegas and the Central AZ, then you'd connect all of those systems together with couple of high speed rail lines.

Now youd have a southwest cluster, a Northern California cluster, Cascadia, Front Range, Texas, Great lakes etc.

then eventually if the demand was there do even longer high speed trains between those clusters to link the whole country.

This process would take decades and require heavy demand for rail. I dont know if the last full national connection would ever come to pass as I dont see how that will ever be more convenient or cheaper than airfare the country is simply to vast

High speed connections across the west coast mega-regions, A connection between the Great Lake Cities and the BOS-WAsh corridor. Sure

But a high speed connection that goes from LA to NYC will just never be worth it.

New Orleans is much like an island in ALL directions (almost literally) but (generally) culturally (and probably economically) moves laterally along the gulf. The area of Mississippi directly north (not east) is a different region and is probably 1/2 abandoned. the era of St. Louis/lower midwest sort of "using" the Port of New Orleans isn't what it was with the rise of Houston but probably more importantly the colossal ports on the west coast.

IIRC the main port in the New Orleans area is essentially the entire riverfront between the city and Baton Rouge, and still remains one of the largest bulk ports on the continent. Mostly grain, I think. Not very much in common with the massive container ports you see on the west coast though.

I love taking off from NOLA on a clear day and really seeing how much the city really is an island. It sure feels like it on the ground too.

Grains and corn get barged down the Mississippi and shipped off, probably lots of coal as well, and of course Oil and LNG

Petroleum/petrochemicals/etc have to be the largest bulk commodity shipped thru New Orleans, I would think.

Nowhere near the volume of containers on the west coast obviously, but container volume is growing in New Orleans and in most large ports.

thats the way the port of st. louis is, mostly grain/bulk terminals strung out along the river over many miles, although they are building container docks now. because we are past the last lock and dam on the river we run the larger barges down to new orleans and while not high value i imagine it still represents a lot of activity. this push to move containers on the mississippi keeps coming up so im guessing the port of new orleans could see a bump from that.

wait, between st. louis and new orleans there are no lock & dams to navigate through on the mississippi?

it's just a free-wheeling river the whole way?

i did not know that.

thanks for the new knowledge.

yep, the barges become much wider at st. louis than they are on the illinois/missouri/ohio and north of st. louis. the chain of rocks (and the chain of rocks canal) north of downtown st. louis is the last impediment to free navigation to the sea. theres photographs of ocean-going navy vessels docked at st. louis during world war one recruiting, central american fruit ships, etc.

that's cool.

looking at gmaps, the granite city lock on the chain of rocks canal (just north of st. louis) is the southernmost lock on the mighty miss. i can't believe i didn't know that. i guess it's because i'm so familiar with the mississippi's upper stretches in IL, IA, WI & MN (i even did a 5 day houseboat river trip ages ago), where lock and damns are like every 30 - 50 miles. i guess i just assumed that pattern continued on downstream of st. louis as well.

st. louis' location makes even more sense to me now. not that the 18th century settlers could have known with any certainty that there would never be any locks below st. louis to the sea, but the chain of rocks almost certainly gave them a pretty clear indication that st. louis' spot on the map was a good place to set up camp along the mississippi (along with being near the confluences with the illinois and missouri rivers).

Any more info on moving containers via river? Trucking is faster but lb for lb water transport is the cheapest way to move goods.

I figured containers would be too heavy for barges and thats why they already dont move goods that way along the Mississippi/Ohio system.

Bulk transport is a weird side interest of mine lol so if you could link something about that Id love to read it.

Here's a good map that displays the major rivers scaled according to volume of water they convey. And how it's truly the Allegheny River that flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

From the US EPA and USGS National Hydrography Dataset project

https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploa...d-1024x853.jpg

this thread reminds me of the five ohio's.

that is never perfectly defined either.

ie., for this one below i would put ashland in the ne and hardin in the nw, etc., but whatever, its good enough to make the point.


https://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/2108175.jpg