Great Lakes Megalopolis - History of The Concept

History of The Concept

The region was partially outlined as an emergent megalopolis in the 1961 book Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States by French geographer Jean Gottmann. Gottmann envisaged the development of megalopolises in the U.S.: BosWash, from Boston to Washington, D.C., Chipitts from Chicago to Pittsburgh, and SanSan, from San Francisco to San Diego. In 1965, Herman Kahn speculated about the future of the three megalopolises in the year 2000, referring to their names as "half-frivolous" and not mentioning Gottman. In the 1960s and 1970s, urban planner and architect Constantinos Doxiadis authored books, studies, and reports including those regarding the growth potential of the Great Lakes Megalopolis. Doxiadis envisioned Detroit as the central urban area in the Great Lakes Megalopolis.

The Virginia Tech Metropolitan Institute's Beyond Megalopolis, an attempt to update Gottmann's work, outlined a similar "Midwest" megapolitan area as one of ten such areas in the United States. Over 200 million tons of cargo are shipped annually through the Great Lakes. Half the nation's population growth and two-thirds of its economic growth is expected to occur within the megaregions over the next four decades. The America 2050 project has identified eleven Megaregions of the United States, including the Great Lakes Megalopolis. In Canada, parts of the region are also referred to as the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor.