The Great Lakes megalopolis consists of the group of metropolitan areas in North America largely in the Great Lakes region. It extends from the Midwestern United States in the south and west to western Pennsylvania and Western New York in the east and northward through Southern Ontario into southwestern Quebec in Canada. It is the most populated and largest megalopolis in North America.
At its most inclusive, in the United States the region cuts a wide swath from the twin cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul in Minnesota in the west, south to St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky, and east to Rochester, New York; in Canada, it continues northeasterly to Quebec City. This broader region had an estimated population of 59,144,461 as of 2011 and is projected to reach a population of about 65 million by 2025. Within this broad region, there is a core area of more continual urban development that includes Chicago, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, South Bend, Detroit–Windsor, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and the metropolitan areas between these.
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 other megalopolises in the U.S.: from Boston to Washington, D.C., from Chicago to Pittsburgh, and from San Francisco to San Diego.
In 1965, futurist Herman Kahn speculated about the three megalopolises in the year 2000. In the 1960s and 1970s, urban planner and architect Constantinos Doxiadis wrote books, studies, and reports about the growth potential of the Great Lakes Megalopolis. Doxiadis envisioned Detroit (on the U.S.-Canada border across from Windsor) as the central urban area in this megalopolis, which he defined as extending "from Milwaukee and Chicago to Detroit, Pittsburgh and Buffalo and into Canada from Windsor to Montreal and Quebec".
In 2005, 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 (Canada is discussed tangentially). Over 200 million tons of cargo are shipped annually through the Great Lakes. The America 2050 project identified 11 Megaregions of the United States, including the Great Lakes Megalopolis. The Canadian part of the region is also referred to as the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, and the densest part in Southern Ontario has long been known as the Golden Horseshoe.
Governments
There are multiple government jurisdictions throughout the megalopolis. In addition to the federal governments of the United States and Canada, there are multiple U.S. states and two Canadian province jurisdictions, and many county and local governments. Most of the states have joined the provinces in forming the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers to coordinate economic and environmental strategies throughout most of the region.
Economy
According to the Brookings Institution, if it stood alone as a country, the economy of the Great Lakes region, which includes most of the Great Lakes Megalopolis, would be one of the largest economic units in the world with a $4.5-trillion gross regional product, roughly equal to Japan's. The five Great Lakes contain one-fifth of the world's surface fresh water and have a combined shoreline of 10,210 miles (17,017 km). About 200 million tons of cargo are shipped through the Great Lakes each year.
The Chicago metropolitan area is by far the megalopolis's largest economy with over $770 billion in annual GDP. Tourism is important to the overall region's economy as well. The Great Lakes Cruising Coalition supports passenger ship cruises through a joint U.S-Canadian venture to Great Lakes Ports and the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
Education
The Great Lakes Megalopolis is home to many prestigious institutions of higher education. Two founding members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, are located in the region. The University of Chicago and Northwestern University in the Chicago area are two high-ranking world universities. Other major universities include the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario; McGill University in Montreal, Quebec; Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; and the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana.