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Ten megapolitan areas
have more than 10 million residents or will have
that many by 2040, according to a new study by
Virginia Tech. They extend into 35 states and
include parts of every state east of the
Mississippi River except Vermont. They
incorporate less than a fifth of the land area
in the continental USA but house more than
two-thirds of the population. Four states are
completely megapolitan: Connecticut, Delaware,
New Jersey and Rhode Island.
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Researchers at the
University of Pennsylvania's Department of City
and Regional Planning predict that by 2050, more
than 300 million people, about 70% of the
population, will live in eight "super city"
regions that today have about 175 million
people.
Georgia Tech, Portland
State (Ore.) University and six other
universities are researching this new urban
form.
"Lots of people have been
stuck in traffic in the middle of nowhere and
have wondered, 'Why all the cars? We're in the
middle of nowhere,' " says Robert Lang, director
of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.
"You, my friend, are in the middle of two vast
metros and in a new form of congestion: megapolitan congestion." In the West, megapolitan
areas today stretch from Los Angeles to Las
Vegas and from the Canadian border to Eugene,
Ore., south of Portland. In the Midwest, one
region extends from Pittsburgh to Milwaukee. The
southern megapolitan area anchored by Atlanta
stretches from Raleigh, N.C., to Birmingham,
Ala.
Research about these
regions could lead to official recognition of
megapolitan areas by the federal government and
its Census Bureau.
"This is how America's
really organized, and nobody's got a statistic
to measure it," Lang says. "The average American
intuitively knows this. They've taken a lot of
business trips in this space. They've taken a
lot of family trips in this space. They know
that's where their families are moving or where
they have friends and relatives."
The Boston-New
York-Washington, D.C., corridor in the congested
Northeast has been recognized as an unofficial
megalopolis since the 1960s. But the interstate
highway system, air travel and population growth
are creating connections in less dense but
fast-growing parts of the country.
Dallas may be 100 miles
away from Ardmore and across the state line, but
it is inextricably connected to this old
ranching and oil town and hundreds of other
communities along Interstate 35 from San Antonio
to Kansas City.
Michelin, Circuit City,
Dot Foods, Dollar General and Best Buy are
setting up plants and large distribution centers
here because of cheap land off I-35, a prime
location for shipment of goods because it's on a
prime route from Mexico to Canada. They're here
also because of easy access to the Dallas
metropolitan area and its international airport
to the south and Oklahoma City to the north. But
they could have settled just as easily in the
next town over.
"Nobody knows where
Ardmore is," says Wes Stucky, president and CEO
of the local chamber and Ardmore Development
Authority.
But they know Dallas,
Oklahoma City and I-35, and they're all part of
one megapolitan area.
"We're looking at places
the way Asians and Europeans do, cutting across
borders," says Robert Yaro, president of the
Regional Plan Association, a New York non-profit
research and advocacy group that works on
quality-of-life issues in 31 adjacent counties
in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Yaro and the Lincoln
Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass.,
are researching ways of formally delineating and
measuring these regions. The goal: to promote
collaboration on transportation and
environmental protection between metropolitan
areas and across political boundaries.
Much to gain from
recognition
Defining these
super-regions would give business and government
a tool to address a variety of issues, from
transit to land use, on a larger scale.
Examples:
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Electronic toll
collection systems, such as E-ZPass in the
Northeast, could be introduced in other
megapolitan areas. Drivers traveling throughout
these regions could use the same toll systems
from state to state.
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Financially troubled
Amtrak could reorganize by dropping service to
areas that attract few passengers and setting up
lines that crisscross megapolitan areas where
places are connected by business networks and
family relationships.
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In the Northwest, a
regional edition of The New York Times
published in Tacoma, Wash., includes ads for
events in Seattle and Portland, a nod to
regional connections. Defining that area as a
super region could spur high-speed rail service
in the Northwest, says Ethan Seltzer, director
of the Toulan School of Urban Studies and
Planning at Portland State University.
"The government should
recognize that we have super cities, super
regions that are emerging," says Catherine Ross,
head of a Georgia Tech program studying the
ever-expanding Atlanta megapolitan area. She
calls it the Piedmont Atlantic Megalopolis, PAM
for short. Defining this vast space as one
region could help spread development and the
increased demand for water, sewers and
electricity more evenly throughout the area, not
just around Atlanta, Ross says.
The Washington-Baltimore
area is another example. In the nation's capital
and its immediate suburbs, the housing market is
superheated. Just 40 miles away in Baltimore, a
city that is losing population, housing is still
affordable but heavy traffic makes such a
commute daunting.
"If you build a bullet
train to Baltimore, you could change that
dynamic," Lang says. "It's in your interest to
redistribute housing opportunities."
Ardmore reaches out
This small town amid
horse and cattle ranches became one of the
wealthiest in the Southwest after oil was
discovered almost a century ago. Vestiges of its
heyday live on in the stately mansions on Sunset
Boulevard and in what locals refer to as "the
smell of money" wafting from the town's last
remaining oil refinery.
But today, local
officials don't need academic research or a
government pronouncement to know that Ardmore's
economic future extends far beyond the town
limits.
Texans are buying ranch
land and moving to Carter County, where Ardmore
is. Casinos on Indian reservations have fueled
hotel, restaurant and golf course development.
"Construction is going on
all over all these towns along I-35. It's
booming," says Bill McLaughlin, vice chairman of
the Carter County Board of Commissioners. "Every
time a ranch is for sale, somebody from Texas
buys it."
"The prices of land,
especially along I-35, have really gone up
dramatically," says William Meacham, a developer
building single-family homes and townhouses for
doctors and other medical staff coming to
Ardmore now that Mercy Memorial Health Center is
constructing a 50,000-square-foot medical office
building.
The Samuel Roberts Noble
Foundation, founded by local oilman Lloyd Noble
to promote agriculture and land conservation,
now faces the challenge of sprawl.
"Five years ago, a
2,000-acre ranch was full of cattle," says
Michael Cawley, president and CEO of the
foundation. "Now, it's filled with
half-million-dollar homes. We have to adjust to
a new kind of landowner."
Cheap land and low
property taxes are a big attraction: 10 cents a
square foot for land in an industrial park in
Ardmore compared with $1-$2 a square foot in
Dallas.
Stucky knows that
companies can find that rate in hundreds of
hamlets along I-35. So Ardmore makes it easier
by buying the land, setting up water lines and
sewers and building the roads to serve new
developers. Three developers are eyeing up to 25
acres each for retail development that would
include Old Navy and Petsmart, Stucky says. "We
know we have to work as a region," he says.
"When you go industry-hunting, you have to have
something to sell. Our geographic location
midway between Oklahoma City and Dallas and on
I-35 is a good sell."
An architectural firm,
Rees & Associates, has monthly meetings here
because it's halfway between its Dallas and
Oklahoma City offices, for example.
When Stucky was in Japan
trying to entice companies, one executive's big
concern was that Ardmore doesn't have direct air
service to Tokyo. "I asked him how long it takes
(to drive) to Narita Airport from Tokyo," Stucky
says."He said two hours. I told him we do have
direct air service. It's DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth
International Airport), and it's only 90 minutes
away. We're a big fan of Dallas."
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