Northeast Megalopolis vs. California Urbanized Area's

[iheartthed]

So megalopolis doesn't mean metropolitan area. I think Bos-Wash is the extreme of a megalopolis in North America, not the standard. A megalopolis is a concentration of large metro areas in "close" proximity. I don't think there is a standard definition of "close" but I'd personally say 20-50 mile breaks in development count as "close".

[mrnyc]

isnt se florida a megalopolis like from below miami to wpb? mini mega version?

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Density difference is not necessarily due to the "Northeast's exurban development patterns". The stage was set long before the term "exurban" was ever used.

It's due to significant differences in age and topography between the two regions. That is the root of it.

The northeast megalopolis is composed of hundreds of old, well-established, densely developed cities and towns (and populated rural areas) which, in may cases, have been around just as long as the primary major city nodes and have been economic centers in their own right for literally centuries. Less dense sprawl has connected them to the mass... simply because the terrain readily allows population to diffuse.

California is obviously a very different case (I don't think we even need to get into the age/history differences). Developable land is at a much greater premium. Valleys are going to completely fill in and be disconnected from other filled-in valleys... simply because the terrain does not readily allow population to diffuse.

Part of the issue is indeed that in the Northeast, towns started out incorporated, which meant snob zoning in the suburbs of 1/4th acre, stopping the sort of dense suburban infill you see out west. But that's not the only issue. Lots of the South has zoning at the county level, but it tends to be pretty sprawly (outside of Florida).

But another aspect is just the value of undeveloped land is different. In much of the Northeast and Southeast, rural land is now pretty marginal for agriculture, and literally has no economic use unless developed. In contrast you tend to see pretty tight boundaries between developed and undeveloped land in agricultural regions. In California lots of comparably high-value crops are grown due to climate, which means it probably has the most expensive agricultural land in the country.

[Obadno]

Repost because I am attention seeking

Originally Posted by pj3000

Maybe so... but you're talking about a roughly 500 mile linear stretch vs. a roughly 200 mile linear stretch... to say nothing of the width of those swaths.

I was under the impression that a megalopolis was multiple connected MSA/CSA's where generally speaking there was minimal undeveloped space between.

That makes the Chicago-Milwaukee-area a Megalopolis, Southern Florida, Soon San-Antonio/Austin, Seattle-Vancouver-Tacoma (soon Portland), Ogden-salt lake-Provo etc. etc

It was less to do with population and more just to do with geography. As well China especially (but the other Asian countries) have some pretty wildly overexaggerated definitions of city districts. China wants to define the entire provinces as a city district.

Just look at the area around Hong Kong or Taiwan or Shanghai as shown on the maps above and huge swaths of those "Cities" are actually farmland.

[Crawford]

Most of the NE corridor has poor soil for agriculture. Basically everything north of Philly. Then all the established older towns gradually merged together because the spaces in-between mostly became upper income sprawl during the postwar decades. The sprawl mostly froze a few decades ago, due to ultra-NIMBYism, environmental rules, water/sewer limitations and changing living preferences, but you can't really roll back the development.

I do think there are arguably three separate NE Corridor megaregions, though. There's a break north/east of Hartford/Springfield, and there's a break south of Wilmington. NE Connecticut and neighboring areas of Mass are pretty empty. The Delaware/Maryland border has some emptyish parts too.

Some of those ultra-sprawl enclaves have questionable futures, however. If they're scenic (and they often are), they can always survive as second-home areas. But you look at some of the public school enrollment trends, and I don't understand how they survive as-is.

[wwmiv]

Megalopolises to me need to meet these criteria:

Contiguous or near-contiguous non-agricultural human development regardless of the density of that development, excluding land that is not suited to development as well as bodies water, between adjacent metropolitan areas with strong commuter ties within and (relatively) between those metropolitan areas as well as high economic interdependence between them facilitated by the presence of multimodal transportation infrastructure.

On a side note, the term usually invokes a sense of “huge” as well. For the sake of limiting it to a 10 million benchmark, then these areas MAY qualify:

Bos-Wash meets all of these criteria.
SoCal meets all of these criteria.
NorCal meets all of these criteria.
Chicagoland almost meets all of these criteria (has too much agricultural use between metro areas).
Golden Horseshoe meets these criteria.
Puget Sound (binationally) almost meets these criteria (same as Chicago).

[dave8721]

The "east coast of Florida" Megalopolis is pretty unbroken. The SW Coast area too but that has a much smaller population:

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Megalopolises to me need to meet these criteria:


Golden Horseshoe meets these criteria.

Hadn't heard of the golden horseshoe, If it includes Canadian Niagara falls it might as well include Buffalo NY

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Repost because I am attention seeking



I was under the impression that a megalopolis was multiple connected MSA/CSA's where generally speaking there was minimal undeveloped space between.

That makes the Chicago-Milwaukee-area a Megalopolis, Southern Florida, Soon San-Antonio/Austin, Seattle-Vancouver-Tacoma (soon Portland), Ogden-salt lake-Provo etc. etc

It was less to do with population and more just to do with geography. As well China especially (but the other Asian countries) have some pretty wildly overexaggerated definitions of city districts. China wants to define the entire provinces as a city district.

Just look at the area around Hong Kong or Taiwan or Shanghai as shown on the maps above and huge swaths of those "Cities" are actually farmland.

It's not that I was refuting that SoCal (or even all of the CA coast from SD up to Bay Area) is a megalopolis. I think it just all depends on how one wants to define it.

I was really just pointing out how different the connected metropolitan areas of the "Bos-Wash" NE corridor and of California (the east and west coast megalopolises, if you will) are.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Some of those ultra-sprawl enclaves have questionable futures, however. If they're scenic (and they often are), they can always survive as second-home areas. But you look at some of the public school enrollment trends, and I don't understand how they survive as-is.

I'm going to be really fascinated to see what happens to my home state of Connecticut in 20 years when the Boomers are all dead/in nursing homes. There's a huge glut of homes that basically no one wants. One tranche of their kids just wants to move to the Sun Belt because it's cheap, and the other moved to the cities (or somewhere at least somewhat walkable/urban lite). The average age in most of these towns just keeps rising, and the number of kids is plummeting.

One would presume at some point they're going to go more downscale - unless you see the few wealthy people who like these areas buying up multiple properties and knocking down smaller homes to get multi-acre estates. But there's no serious signs of it yet.

[Crawford]

Yeah, I don't get the endgame for the ultra-sprawl towns in CT (or the Northeast in general). The ones that have outstanding schools and relatively near amenities (Wilton, Weston) will probably do OK. A lot of people were talking about the pandemic as the sprawl savior but that talk already died down. It's again the in-town, more coastal locations that have the greatest demand. The Dariens of the world. Even when the schools aren't flat-out outstanding. Places like Fairfield.

Once you leave Fairfield County, however, it seems really dicey. Some of the districts already have 50%+ enrollment drops in a pretty short period of time. Are there that many households of child-bearing age who want to live in a 1960's house on five acres with well/septic and no amenities?

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by dave8721

The "east coast of Florida" Megalopolis is pretty unbroken. The SW Coast area too but that has a much smaller population:

I would call that a miniopolis, since it isn’t quite as populated as the others. For that matter, the collection of cities in the Puget Sound isn’t quite 10 million, is it?

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I would call that a miniopolis, since it isn’t quite as populated as the others. For that matter, the collection of cities in the Puget Sound isn’t quite 10 million, is it?

6 million for South Florida (Not including the Gulf side or Orland/Daytona)

Vancouver + Everett + Seattle/Tacoma = 6.5mm

[iheartthed]

To respond to the OP, the northeast metro areas are not completely built out like they are in California (particularly NY Metro). This is in a "core" NY Metro county, but is this really "sprawl"? https://goo.gl/maps/oHgsk8vup4aCHCXw6

Much of (maybe most of?) the land area in NY Metro barely exceeds the definition of rural, but most people in NY Metro live in some of the most densely populated environments on Earth.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I'm going to be really fascinated to see what happens to my home state of Connecticut in 20 years when the Boomers are all dead/in nursing homes. There's a huge glut of homes that basically no one wants. One tranche of their kids just wants to move to the Sun Belt because it's cheap, and the other moved to the cities (or somewhere at least somewhat walkable/urban lite). The average age in most of these towns just keeps rising, and the number of kids is plummeting.

One would presume at some point they're going to go more downscale - unless you see the few wealthy people who like these areas buying up multiple properties and knocking down smaller homes to get multi-acre estates. But there's no serious signs of it yet.

I agree. Even locally here, I don't want my parents 3,500 sq ft house on 2.5 acres with 5 car garage stalls 40 minutes outside the city when they pass on. I would sell it and probably buy a nice lower maintenance historic townhome in the Mexican War Streets or Bloomfield or something and live more simply.

[Crawford]

My parents have a similar setup. I don't know anyone in my age cohort or younger who wants to live like this. Just the thought of all the regular maintenance gives me headaches. Never a free weekend in the warm-weather months.

If someone really loves the sprawl, autocentric lifestyle, better to buy new so nothing major breaks for at least a decade. What's the point of all this acreage, and a giant garage, and empty rooms?

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

To respond to the OP, the northeast metro areas are not completely built out like they are in California (particularly NY Metro). This is in a "core" NY Metro county, but is this really "sprawl"? https://goo.gl/maps/oHgsk8vup4aCHCXw6

Much of (maybe most of?) the land area in NY Metro barely exceeds the definition of rural, but most people in NY Metro live in some of the most densely populated environments on Earth.

Without any knowledge of that area, that looks rural to me.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

My parents have a similar setup. I don't know anyone in my age cohort or younger who wants to live like this. Just the thought of all the regular maintenance gives me headaches. Never a free weekend in the warm-weather months.

If someone really loves the sprawl, autocentric lifestyle, better to buy new so nothing major breaks for at least a decade. What's the point of all this acreage, and a giant garage, and empty rooms?

I don't have the acreage but I do have the largish house in the burbs and my wife and I aren't slaves to it. We just pay someone to fix anything that breaks and still enjoy the weekends. We converted two bedrooms into office, one for me (I work at home) and one for my wife when she takes a day and works from home as well.

[homebucket]

As for Norcal, I don't think Sacramento and the Bay Area are developed enough in between to be considered a megalopolis. There's 5 segments (3-6 miles each of nothingness) of wilderness and farmland and wetlands in between on the I-80 corridor that isn't developed: between Vallejo and Fairfield, Fairfield and Vacaville, Vacaville and Dixon, Dixon and Davis, Davis and Sacramento.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by homebucket

As for Norcal, I don't think Sacramento and the Bay Area are developed enough in between to be considered a megalopolis. There's 5 segments (3-6 miles each of nothingness) of wilderness and farmland and wetlands in between on the I-80 corridor that isn't developed: between Vallejo and Fairfield, Fairfield and Vacaville, Vacaville and Dixon, Dixon and Davis, Davis and Sacramento.

There are permanent greenbelts as well to keep development away.