America’s 7 mega regions.

[The North One]

urgh...

not this mega region topic for the millionth time.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by BG918

I've seen it included, along with Tulsa, as the northern region of the Texas Triangle because of close economic ties to the rest of Texas.

That's one cool looking constellation. Maybe it's because I'm in Houston that I feel little connection to Oklahoma (except Tulsa to an extent) compared to a significant connection to Louisiana.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

well, i've driven I-90 between cleveland and buffalo a handful of times and.........

fuckload of farms, just like everywhere else in the midwest between cities.

it's certainly not that treeless "infinite cornfield" effect of I-55 in central illinois, but i'd hardly call it an active and dense corridor.

Oh yeah, I didn’t mean to suggest there some lack of farms by any means... that stretch is the second largest grape growing region in the US. Vineyards and fruit farms in fuckload quantity! PA (and NYS) in general is totally full of farms. I think that in a narrow stretch along the lakeshore has a bit more going on overall consistently than what you will find on the stretch between Toledo and eastern reach of Chicago, but certainly not some vibrant corridor.

Fuckload... great word btw.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Nobody in Brooklyn thinks it is the city they live in is any more connected to Boston than a person in Chicago thinks their city is connected to Detroit.

I'm calling shenanigans on this. There are plenty of people who live in Brooklyn, work in media/publishing, fin/ad tech, biotech/pharma, or education and who are in Boston multiple times a month. Because of how interconnected certain industries are in the Northeast. JetBlue alone offers 22 daily flights between Boston and NYC. I remember reading a while back that the Boston - NYC daily shuttle volumes were among the highest in the country.

Look, I get where you're going with this line of reasoning. And from outside America, this whole mega-region talk is a bit silly. Nothing in the US comes remotely close to the functional regional integration you see in Europe and Asia. But the Northeast, especially Bos-Wash, is the closest we get by a wide margin.

[Crawford]

I also don't buy it. NYC is closer to Boston than Detroit is to Chicago, the corridor is more seamlessly urban, and the transit links are better. Also, it seems every other person in NYC went to school in the Boston area.

There are, of course, linkages between Detroit and Chicago. Some cultural similarities, the sprawl looks identical, plenty of Detroiters live in Chicago after college, and Chicagoans vacation in Michigan (but not anywhere near Detroit; West Michigan is culturally distinct from Detroit).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Shawn

And from outside America, this whole mega-region talk is a bit silly. Nothing in the US comes remotely close to the functional regional integration you see in Europe and Asia. But the Northeast, especially Bos-Wash, is the closest we get by a wide margin.

i really don't know how any reasonable person can disagree with that.

as someone who has driven around and explored all over the midwest, the major cities out here are simply WAY too pulled apart to have any kind of meaningful comparison to the bos-wash corridor.

i mean, sure, lots of midwest cities have economic, cultural, historical, demographic, etc. ties with each other, but none of them make cohesive entities together when there are hours of farm fields in between them.

hell, even between chicago and milwaukee (the closest major midwest city pair), you still have scenes like this on I-94 between the two: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6504...7i13312!8i6656

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i really don't know how any reasonable person can disagree with that.

as someone who has driven around and explored all over the midwest, the major cities out here are simply WAY too pulled apart to have any kind of meaningful comparison to the bos-wash corridor.

i mean, sure, lots of midwest cities have economic, cultural, historical, demographic, etc. ties with each other, but none of them make cohesive entities together when there are hours of farm fields in between them.

hell, even between chicago and milwaukee (the closest major midwest city pair), you still have scenes like this on I-94 between the two: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6504...7i13312!8i6656

Exactly, I don't really understand how it's even remotely debatable.

That map highlights supposed "emerging" megaregions... though there is nothing emerging about the east coast Bos-Wash corridor; it has existed cohesively since the 1960s and has only formed a tighter physical footprint due to boosts in suburban sprawl since the 1990s, especially. Like Crawford says above, it's the only section of the nation that can accurately claim that descriptor... so that's really all that we have here to legitimately compare to.

Meanwhile, the Great Lakes megaregion the map proposes something that is so far off from reality currently, and which zero indicators suggest movement in that direction on that massive of a scale in the future. There are no emerging trends that suggest that Altoona, PA and Des Moines, IA will merge into some contiguous geographical unit characterized by:

- Interlocking economic systems
- Shared natural resources, ecosystems, and topography
- Common transportation/infrastructure systems linking population centers
- Similar settlement patterns and land use
- Shared culture and history

Altoona barely shares ANY of the above with Erie (and they're both smaller cities in western PA... basically only connected by 100 miles of mountainous forest and farms), to day nothing about supposed connection via those above characteristics with Madison or Kansas City or even Dayton. Buffalo and Rochester aren't even that tightly connected...

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i really don't know how any reasonable person can disagree with that.

as someone who has driven around and explored all over the midwest, the major cities out here are simply WAY too pulled apart to have any kind of meaningful comparison to the bos-wash corridor.

i mean, sure, lots of midwest cities have economic, cultural, historical, demographic, etc. ties with each other, but none of them make cohesive entities together when there are hours of farm fields in between them.

hell, even between chicago and milwaukee (the closest major midwest city pair), you still have scenes like this on I-94 between the two: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6504...7i13312!8i6656

Id argue for SOCAL actually, without the military and mountains Tijuana all the way to Santa-Clarita would be an unbroken urban sprawl and nearly is anyway even with the geographic constraints.

Its getting to the point now where you dont really leave developed land by the time you hit Palm Springs all the way to the coast either.

[Citylover94]

SoCal would qualify in my view as well. I am from the northeast but looking at the development from Santa Clarita to Tijuana it is clear that the only breaks in development are as a result of geography and a military base and it is not as though there are zero breaks in development in the Boswash corridor. There are segments of land that are relatively rural contained within the northeast corridor too. The other key that makes SoCal legitimate in my mind is that while each city has its own unique qualities there is a shared history and culture in these regions and strong economic connections between each of the cities.

I do have a hard time including Palm Springs though. That feels more like the southern coast of Maine in that it is a major tourist destination for people from the mega-region but is somewhat isolated from it economically aside from tourism. Although I suppose you could argue that coastal Maine up to Portland should be included in Boswash, but it is too rural and overall disconnected for that to seem reasonable to me.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Citylover94

SoCal would qualify in my view as well. I am from the northeast but looking at the development from Santa Clarita to Tijuana it is clear that the only breaks in development are as a result of geography and a military base and it is not as though there are zero breaks in development in the Boswash corridor. There are segments of land that are relatively rural contained within the northeast corridor too. The other key that makes SoCal legitimate in my mind is that while each city has its own unique qualities there is a shared history and culture in these regions and strong economic connections between each of the cities.

I do have a hard time including Palm Springs though. That feels more like the southern coast of Maine in that it is a major tourist destination for people from the mega-region but is somewhat isolated from it economically aside from tourism. Although I suppose you could argue that coastal Maine up to Portland should be included in Boswash, but it is too rural and overall disconnected for that to seem reasonable to me.

I include palm springs because having driven the I-10 into LA dozens of times there isnt much break in civilization from that point. Not as dense as the coast but other than a large wind farm there isnt really a break.

[liat91]

Originally Posted by McBane

Not to pile on but this is ridiculous. As someone who lives in Philly and frequently travels to NY, CT, NJ, DE, MD, and VA, there are not "plenty of large swaths" of undeveloped land. Certainly, there's rural-ish exurbs at each metro's edge but by no means are we even remotely close to "large swaths of undeveloped land and small towns", like say you'd find in Wyoming. It sounds like your perspective is way off.

This.
CSA’s and even metros have areas in them that aren’t solid sprawl ie; Los Angeles. Mega regions will clearly have areas between them that aren’t developed. We’re not on Ecumanopolis. Where would a person even get an idea to the contrary?

DC-Boston has been a given for a century now. I believe we’re at Atlanta - Boston, now. Irrespective of the North-South divide. This stretch seems to share a lot of cross regional elements, including heavy regional tourism, accomplished by modes of travel other than airplane.

Not a lot of people from St Louis go the Cape or Outer Banks. People from Pittsburgh do, however. No big Detroit and South Padre flows or Portland and Lake Havasu either.

You can look at regional anchors as well, with the exception of NYC to a degree, which is a global anchor really. So for the regions I listed you would have NY, Chicago, LA and Seattle as clear anchors and the others being multi anchored, like Miami-Tampa-Orlando, New Orleans-Nashville and Dallas-Houston. Denver and Salt Lake City would be all by their lonesome.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pj3000

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

ha, fair enough. i always marvel at the width of the ohio where it meets the mississippi and how it turn a large river into a colossus that pours into the sea.

the mississippi between st. louis and cairo actually gets pretty narrow and small as it cuts through the bedrock of the ozark and southern illinois uplift without the elevation support of locks and dams.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

ha, fair enough. i always marvel at the width of the ohio where it meets the mississippi and how it turn a large river into a colossus that pours into the sea.

the mississippi between st. louis and cairo actually gets pretty narrow and small as it cuts through the bedrock of the ozark and southern illinois uplift without the elevation support of locks and dams.

When I was a kid, my dad took us over the old and narrow bridges at Cairo to see this spot. It's really impressive and almost scary. It's far from any interstate highways so it's not something most Americans have seen.

[benp]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

ha, fair enough. i always marvel at the width of the ohio where it meets the mississippi and how it turn a large river into a colossus that pours into the sea.

the mississippi between st. louis and cairo actually gets pretty narrow and small as it cuts through the bedrock of the ozark and southern illinois uplift without the elevation support of locks and dams.

The width of the Niagara River where it splits at Grand Island is nearly 2 miles wide, over 1/2 mile wider than the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at Cairo.

The graphic should actually show the St. Lawrence River as wider than the Ohio, and the Detroit, St. Claire, Niagara rivers more than twice as width of the Missouri. As shown in the graphic they are made much much smaller than the scale used for other rivers, possibly because they are technically straits (if not shown correctly then why show them at all?).

[jmecklenborg]

Per this list, the flow rate of the Mississippi River is about 10% higher than the St. Lawrence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_by_discharge

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I include palm springs because having driven the I-10 into LA dozens of times there isnt much break in civilization from that point. Not as dense as the coast but other than a large wind farm there isnt really a break.

Additionally, Palm Springs area is intrinsically tied to the Los Angeles area both economically and socially.

[LA21st]

Palm Springs is weird, but it's defintiely a part of the LA area.
It wouldnt exist without LA. Its far as hell, but it counts imo.

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by benp

The graphic should actually show the St. Lawrence River as wider than the Ohio, and the Detroit, St. Claire, Niagara rivers more than twice as width of the Missouri. As shown in the graphic they are made much much smaller than the scale used for other rivers, possibly because they are technically straits (if not shown correctly then why show them at all?).

It's by volume so you need to factor in depth and not just width.

[benp]

Originally Posted by DZH22

It's by volume so you need to factor in depth and not just width.

Width of the lines on the graphic, not width of the rivers. The width of the lines should be proportional to the flow, per the scale shown on the map.

Top 10 rivers by volume in the US - average discharge in cf/s.

1. Mississippi 593k cf/s
2. Ohio 281.5k
3. St. Lawrence 275k (US only)
4. Columbia 273k
5. Yukon 227k
6. Atchafalaya 225k
7. Niagara 204.7
8. Detroit 188k
9. St. Claire 183k
10. Missouri 86.3k

The point is that the boldfaced are big rivers, moving lots of volume of water, but the graphic makes them look small.

[twinpeaks]

Why was this thread raise from the dead? and topic is now about rivers