A megalopolis (/ˌmɛɡəˈlɒpəlɪs/) or a supercity,[1] also called a megaregion,[2] is a group of metropolitan areas which are perceived as a continuous urban area through common systems of transport, economy, resources, ecology, and so on.[2] They are integrated enough that coordinating policy is valuable, although the constituent metropolises keep their individual identities.[2] The megalopolis concept has become highly influential as it introduced a new, larger scale thinking about urban patterns and growth.[3]
The term has specific geographic definitions dating from 1832, when its meaning was "a metropolis," that is, "a very large, heavily populated urban complex".
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jean Gottmann, a professor of political science at the University of Paris and member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, directed "A Study of Megalopolis" for The Twentieth Century Fund, wherein he described a megalopolis as a "world of ideas".[7] Gottmann, in his extensive studies, applied the term megalopolis to an analysis of the urbanized northeastern seaboard of the U.S., in particular from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. (now commonly referred to as the Northeast Corridor).[7][8] He chose the term megalopolis in consultation with classicists, noting earlier usage "with quite different meaning" (besides by the ancients, by Lewis Mumford with regard to the general trend in history and geography "toward large cities").[7] [Mumford, in his The Culture of Cities (1938), describes their formation as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline.][9] In 1994, William S. Ellis and the editors of the National Geographic, writing about the city of Boston, asserted that Gottmann's c.1961 use of the term for the Northeast megalopolis was the first specific use of the term with the refined meaning of an amalgam of multiple urban areas into a larger area.[10] Yoav Hagler, writing in 2009 for the America 2050 project of the Regional Plan Association (RPA) likewise, in introducing the term historically, states megalopolis as the antecedent of the RPA's preferred term for U.S. examples, which is "megaregion"[2] Pedagogically, the term "supercity" has been offered as a synonym for these two terms.[1]
A megalopolis and its synonym megaregion, following the work of Gottmann, refer to two or more roughly adjacent metropolitan areas that, through commonality of systems—e.g., of transport, economy, resources, and ecologies—experience a blurring of the boundaries between the population centers,[2] such that while some degree of separation may remain, their perception as a continuous urban area is of value, e.g., "to coordinate policy at this expanded scale".[2] Simply put, a megalopolis (or a megaregion[15]) is a clustered network of big cities. Gottmann defined its population as 25 million,[16] while Doxiadis defined a small megalopolis a similar cluster with a population of about 10 million.[15][17] America 2050,[18] a program of the Regional Plan Association (RPA), lists 11 megaregions in the United States and Canada.
Megaregions of the United States were explored in a July 2005 report by Robert E. Lang and Dawn Dhavale of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.[19] A later 2007 article by Lang and Nelson uses 20 "megapolitan" areas grouped into 10 megaregions.[20] The concept is based on the original "Megalopolis model".[17]
Modern interlinked ground transportation corridors, such as rail and highway, often aid in the development of megalopolises. Using these commuter passageways to travel throughout the megalopolis is informally called megaloping, a term coined by Davide Gadren and Stefan Berteau.[21]
In Brazil, the term megarregião has a legal meaning, different from the English word megaregion: mesoregions of Brazil (mesorregião) and microregions of Brazil (microrregião). In China, the official term corresponding to the meaning of "megalopolis" is '城市群' (chéngshì qún), which literally means "city cluster". City cluster '城市群' is defined as "[a]n area in which cities are relatively densely distributed in a certain region".[22][23] Until 2019, and the publication of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) guidelines, there was no clear distinction between "megalopolis" and "metropolitan area" (都市圈) in China.[24]
In July 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit brought out a report that described 13 emerging megalopolises in China, highlighting the demographic and income trends that are shaping their development.[29] Eleven Chinese megalopolises (not necessarily drawn from the preceding source), are:
Central-Southern Liaoning (辽中南): Within 150 km from its center Shenyang (7.2 million), it has Fushun (3 million), Anshan (3.6 million), Benxi (1.5 million), Liaoyang (1.8 million), Yingkou (2.2 million), Panjin (1.2 million), and Tieling (3.4 million), with a total population of 23 million. And it can be further extended to Dalian (6.2 million), Fuxin (2 million) and Dandong (2.4 million).[citation needed] This area used to be the most industrialized region in China, but began to decline in the 1980s.[citation needed]
Greater Tehran: A region located Tehran and Alborz provinces in central northern Iran with its influence expanding in Mazandaran, Qazvin, and Qom provinces, home for at least 15 million people, it is one of the most populous urban areas in the Greater Middle East and the surrounding regions. Tehran was a small village 200 years ago when it was first chosen as the Capital city and it has been growing at a very fast rate.[citation needed]
Turkey
Istanbul, Kocaeli, and Sakarya provinces at night
Ista-Burs Megalopolis: In addition to the mega cities of Istanbul and Bursa; Gebze, Yalova, Kocaeli, and Adapazarı cities form a contiguous urban area.[39][40] In 2020, these provinces are home to about 21 million people.[41]
Total Population of Mega Manila as of 2015: (40,624,035)[47]
Indonesia
Jakarta metropolitan area/"Jabodetabek" (31,240,000).[48] The area comprises Jakarta Special Capital Region and surrounding satellite cities, with the name taken from the first two (or three) letters of each city's name: Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi.
Thailand
Bay of Bangkok Economic Rim: Bangkok–Ayutthaya–Pattaya (16,000,000)
The Blue Banana, also known as the European Megalopolis or the Liverpool-Milan axis, is a discontinuous corridor of urbanization spreading over Western and Central Europe, with a population of around 111 million.
Constituent urban areas of each megalopolis are based on reckoning by a single American organization, the Regional Plan Association (RPA). The RPA definition of the Great Lakes Megalopolis includes some Canadian metropolitan areas with the United States, including some but not all major urban centres in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. Note that one city, Houston, is listed in two different Megalopolis regions as defined by the RPA, (the Gulf Coast and the Texas Triangle). 77% of the U.S. population lives in at least one of the megalopolises listed below.[citation needed][51][page needed]
The following megaregions in Colombia are expected to have nearly 93% (55 million people) of its population by 2030, up from the current 72%[citation needed]. There are currently four major megaregions in Colombia.
In the Judge Dredd (1977) comic book series and its spinoff series, Mega-City One is a huge fictional megalopolis-size city-state covering much of what is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada. The exact geography of the city depends on which writer and artist has done which story, but from its first appearance it has been associated with New York City's urban sprawl; originally it was presented as a future New York, which was retconned as the centre of a "Mega-City One" in the very next story.[72] The Architects' Journal placed it at No. 1 in their list of "comic book cities".[73]
In William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, "the Sprawl" is a colloquial name for the "Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis" (BAMA), an urban sprawl environment on a massive scale, and a fictional extension of the real Northeast megalopolis. The Sprawl is a visualization of a future where virtually the entire East Coast of the United States, from Boston to Atlanta, has melded into a single mass of urban sprawl.[74] It has been enclosed in several geodesic domes and merged into one megacity. The city has become a separate world with its own climate, no real night/day cycle, and an artificial sky that is always grey.
Further reading
Hagler, Yoav (November 2009). "Defining U.S. Megaregions"(PDF). America 2050. Retrieved February 19, 2022 – via RPA.org. This work, while dated, is from Associate Planner Yoav Hagler of America 2050, and while not used as a source in this article, is one of the most focused articles available on the American aspects of the title subject. It includes history, methodology, and statistical and other criteria sections, and identifies the U.S. megaregions as of its publication date.
America 2050 Staff (February 19, 2022). "Megaregions". America 2050. Archived from the original(homepage) on May 16, 2017. Retrieved February 19, 2022 – via RPA.org. Starting point for access to articles from the America 2050 effort, while it was active. Note, an earlier cited article by Matt Taylor, on urban transit issues, appears among the works linked at this home page.
^ abFielder, W. & Feeney, Georgiana (1976). Inquiring about Cities. New York, N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston (Georg Von Holtzbrinck/Holt). pp. 193, 299. ISBN9780030897849. Retrieved June 25, 2018.((cite book)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ abcdefHagler, Yoav (November 2009). "Defining U.S. Megaregions"(PDF). America 2050. Retrieved February 19, 2022 – via RPA.org. As metropolitan regions continued to expand throughout the second half of the 20th century their boundaries began to blur, creating a new scale of geography now known as the megaregion. Interlocking economic systems, shared natural resources and ecosystems, and common transportation systems link these... The challenge of identifying... emerging regions has been undertaken... The most recent iteration... has been developed by Regional Plan Association (RPA) in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Eleven such megaregions have been identified... that would make cooperative integrated planning advantageous... Th[e] tradition of geographers and planners attempting to enhance the value of geographic definitions to meet the needs of new generations continued with the first identification of a scale larger than the metro regions by French geographer Jean Gottmann in his 1961 book Megalopolis. This "Megalopolis" referred specifically to the Northeastern United States ... Regional Plan Association also identified this emerging Northeast Megaregion in the 1960s.
^Harper, Douglas (February 19, 2022). "Megalopolis (n.)". Online Etymology Dictionary (Etymonline.com). Tupelo, Miss.: Douglas Harper. Retrieved February 19, 2022. Harper offers the Greek genitive megalou as the precise antecedent.
^ abcGottmann, Jean (1957). "Megalopolis, or the urbanization of the Northeastern Seaboard". Economic Geography. 33 (3): 189–200. doi:10.2307/142307. JSTOR142307.
^"Lewis Mumford", Wikipedia, June 13, 2022, retrieved June 15, 2022
^Ellis, William S. (July 1994). Sartore, Joel (photographer). ""Breaking New Ground: Boston"". National Geographic. Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society. 186 (1). See the "Double Map Supplement: Megalopolis", which presents a map supplement of contemporary Boston, with an image, verso, of the same region map ca. 1830.
^Students of ARC 642 (2015). "Megalopolis". In Kallipoliti, Lydia (ed.). Environmental Cloud Atlas. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University School of Architecture. Retrieved February 18, 2022. Patrick Geddes coined this term in the early twentieth century... Note, this work makes other original, untested claims, including that the term is now no longer relevant, insofar as digital aspects of business have (fully) made physical geographical descriptions "outdated".[dubious – discuss] For the further information regarding the date of, and attribution of this work to Kallipoliti et al., see this link.
^"地域活性化戦略（案）資料"(PDF) (in Japanese). Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. p. 4. Archived(PDF) from the original on September 23, 2016. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
^"2015 Population Census". Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Archived from the original on August 25, 2016. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
^A government publication states that on 1 November 2010, the population of "Seoul Metropolitan Area" stood at 23,616 thousand, which is the sum of the figures given for Gyeonggi-do (11,270 thousand), Seoul (9,708 thousand) and Incheon (2,638 thousand), apparently including the periphery. Source: "Preliminary Results of the 2010 Population and Housing Census"Archived 2012-01-31 at the Wayback Machine (PDF). Statistics Korea. 21 January 2011. Retrieved 23 July 2011.
^Ordóñez Burbano, Luis A. (2007). Universidad del Valle 60 años 1945-2005: Atando cabos en clave de memoria. Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia: Universidad del Valle. p. 58. OCLC645219600
^"Metropolis (1927)"Science Fiction Film History. Retrieved 15 May 2013. Quote: "Although the first science fiction film is generally agreed to be Georges Méliès' A Trip To The Moon (1902), Metropolis (1926) is the first feature length outing of the genre."
^Hahn, Ronald M. and Jansen, Volker (1998) Die 100 besten Kultfilme [The 100 best cult movies] Munich: Heyne Filmbibliothek. p.396. ISBN3-453-86073-X (German)
Cities portal
