The concept of “the city” —as well as “the state” and “the nation state” —is passé, agree contributors to this insightful book. The new scale for considering economic strength and growth opportunities is “the megaregion,” a network of metropolitan centers and their surrounding areas that are spatially and functionally linked through environmental, economic, and infrastructure interactions. Recently a great deal of attention has been focused on the emergence of the European Union and on European spatial planning, which has boosted the region’s competitiveness. Megaregions applies these emerging concepts in an American context. It addresses critical questions for our future: What are the spatial implications of local, regional, national, and global trends within the context of sustainability, economic competitiveness, and social equity? How can we address housing, transportation, and infrastructure needs in growing megaregions? How can we develop and implement the policy changes necessary to make viable, livable megaregions? By the year 2050, megaregions will contain two-thirds of the U.S. population. Given the projected growth of the U.S. population and the accompanying geographic changes, this forward-looking book argues that U.S. planners and policymakers must examine and implement the megaregion as a new and appropriate framework. Contributors, all of whom are leaders in their academic and professional specialties, address the most critical issues confronting the U.S. over the next fifty years. At the same time, they examine ways in which the idea of megaregions might help address our concerns about equity, the economy, and the environment. Together, these essays define the theoretical, analytical, and operational underpinnings of a new structure that could respond to the anticipated upheavals in U.S. population and living patterns.

""Examines the socioeconomic, demographic, and climate challenges U.S. megaregions face in the 21st century and proposes new planning and policy strategies to tackle them"--Provided by publisher"--

By critically assessing the opportunities and challenges posed by planning and governing at the megaregional scale, this innovative book examines the latest conceptualizations of trans-metropolitan landscapes. In doing so, it seeks to uncover whether m

The US population is estimated to grow by more than 110 million people by 2050, and much of this growth will take place where cities and their suburbs are expanding to meet the suburbs of neighboring cities, creating continuous urban megaregions. There are now at least a dozen megaregions in the US. If current trends continue unchanged, new construction in these megaregions will put more and more stress on the natural systems that are necessary for our existence, will make highway gridlock and airline delays much worse, and will continue to attract investment away from older areas. However, the megaregion in 2050 is still a prediction. Future economic and population growth could go only to environmentally safe locations. while helping repair landscapes damaged by earlier development. Improved transportation systems could reduce highway and airport congestion. Some new investment could be drawn to by-passed parts of older cities, which are becoming more separate and unequal. In Designing the Megaregion, planning and urban design expert Jonathan Barnett describes how to redesign megaregional growth using mostly private investment, without having to wait for massive government funding or new governmental structures. Barnett explains practical initiatives to make new development fit into its environmental setting, especially important as the climate changes; reorganize transportation systems to pull together all the components of these large urban regions; and redirect the market forces which are making megaregions very unequal places. There is an urgent need to begin designing megaregions, and Barnett shows that the ways to make major improvements are already available.

RVTR, a design research practice with studios based in Toronto and Ann Arbor, have undertaken a multi-faceted investigation into possible urban futures for the Great Lakes Megaregion of North America. The study is based in the proposition that by investigating interdependent agents, material flows and policies, and by focusing on "back of house" activities of cities and their support systems-such as infrastructures, logistics and ecologies-, architects can conceive new distributed urban architectures that have the potential to actively transform the future of cities, settlement patterns and metropolitan life. Utilizing tools of urban analysis and formal intervention, RVTR aim to re-conceptualize future boundaries, governance, politics, economies and public architecture. Infra Eco Logi Urbanism presents comprehensively RVTR's findings and proposals. Around 100 images, visualizations and graphics illustrate the text. The book also features essays situating the historical development of the region around transportation, and investigating possible future worlds and utopias within the context of the specific project and more broadly the practice of design-research.

In an increasingly globalised world, cities and regions sometimes join forces with their neighbours to form "megaregions" and tap economies of scale. This report discusses how eight cities and counties in Norway and Sweden - along the coast joining up Oslo, Gothenburg and Malmö - have decided ...

This book unravels China’s new megaregional structure, new megaregional planning and development, new megaregional governance, and new regional planning system. It draws upon a diversity of megaregional cases: city clusters of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, Yangtze River delta region, and Greater Bay Area; and metropolitan circles of Chengdu, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Zhengzhou. Megaregions are the new form of Chinese-style urbanisation. China’s new discourse of ‘high-quality development’ and ‘new-type urbanisation’ is reshaping its megaregional strategy. Imbalance and fragmentation characterise the diversity of megaregions - developed or developing, coastal or inland. The central goal of megaregional planning and governance is to achieve integrated, balanced development of them. Hu challenges the official notion of ‘top-level design’ that dominates the planning, governance, and development of China’s megaregions. Instead, he argues for the importance of engaging nongovernmental stakeholders, rebalancing the government-market relationality, encouraging bottom-up initiatives, and enabling grassroots ingenuity. The volume offers the first and most comprehensive study of megaregional China in the new contexts of both national development and urban development. It will be of interest to anyone looking into urban and regional development, and Chinese studies.