Talk:ChiPitts

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Shouldn't Louisville, KY be included in the list? --Max Battcher

Um, no. Personally, I think the whole definition of the term, "megalopolis," has been quite extended a bit far. The term was first used to describe the connection of continuous metropolitan areas that extended from Boston, Massachusetts through New York City to Washington, D.C.. If you look at a satellite image of the US at night, you can clearly see the large blot of WHITE in that region, which is larger than any other major concentrations of light in the US. However, defining the area from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Chicago, Illinois is a bit of a stretch. There's lots of open space in between. While there's definitely some large metro areas (Chicago, Pittsburgh, Indy, Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit), they're not anywhere nearly as contiguous as the Boston-Washington area. And extending as far south as Cincinnati and Louisville is stretching the definition even further. Personally, it appears that a lot of people promoting some of these new megalopoli are residents of smaller towns near some of these larger cities that want to make their own town stand out a bit more by saying it's part of a greater metro area. Dr. Cash 14:28, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I have real doubts about whether this megalopolis exists. I've lived in Columbus/Cleveland 18 years and I have never heard about it. I don't sense any awareness among the people who live there that it's a megalopolis. There's certainly no sense of identity as one. And furthermore, I think it's just factually incorrect. Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinatti, and Chicago are all separated by a whole lot of corn. Hours and hours of corn. That's hardly a mega-city.

I doubt it as well. I grew up in Milwaukee which is 90 miles north of Chicago and I'd have a hard time even arguing the existence of a "MilChi." I think the problem is that whereas major insterstates run right through cities on the east coast, they run around all but the largest cities in the Great Lakes region. That's why even though there are a few decent sized towns between Milwaukee and Chicago (Racine, Kenosha, Waukegan, Evanston, etc.), the only thing of any significance you'll see when driving from one to the other is Six Flags. Hardly a basis for making an argument that a continuous metro area exists. --Illwauk 22:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The term exists, and was once a trendy concept; but it didn't happen, like a lot of other things futurists predicted (where's my personal jetpack?). See my note below under "Possibly outmoded concept"! --Orange Mike 23:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that the term doesn't exist (clearly it does). But like you said... it didn't happen. And even if it did, "MilBuff" would be a much more accurate term since SE Wisconsin (Milwaukee) and Western NY (Buffalo) are supposedly the actual "borders." --Illwauk 22:41, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a brief interrupt between Pittsburgh and Erie, PA and Western New York's built-up area. But on the west, there are contiguous metropolitan areas now as far southwest as St. Louis, west as the Quad Cities, and northwest as Appleton and Madison. Heck, nowadays you can go south from Chicago via Louisville to Montgomery, AL and Macon, GA and never leave metropolitan areas! The whole ChiPitts thing is pretty well outmoded by the changes in the way industry has been yanked out of the big cities and pushed into the 'burbs and the country (and farther south), in search of low wages and desperate workers, while corporate operations were moved into "office parks" closer to the executives' homes and golf courses. --Orange Mike 04:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I agree with Chicago to Macon. I've taken the greyhound from Milwaukee to Atlanta quite a few times and there is literally nothing between Chicagoland and Lousiville other than Indianapolis. 65 is by far the most boring stretch of interstate I've ever been on. You might be able to argue for Lousiville to Macon if you were willing to accept places like Murfresboro, Tennessee as a "metro area." I suppose you could include the Fox Valley since there's only a slight hiccup between Milwaukee and Oshkosh, and that'll definetly change if Interstate 41 happens. But then you risk changing the name of the region to "A-Pit," and I think there are regions that deserve to be called an "A-Pit" much more than the Great Lakes (lol). --Illwauk 07:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You're a city guy, Ilwauk. "Metropolitan areas" means the 'burbs as well as the true cities. It even includes places like my homeland of Chester County, Tennessee (part of the Jackson, TN metro area) nowadays, as urban sprawl eats into formerly rural areas: low density, low efficiency, low cost, low wages. You are also, of course, abusing the word "literally" rather badly. --Orange Mike 15:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

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The other issue I would have about classing this a real megalopolis or metroplex is that is seems to include any major population center that is in the Midwest or Eastern Canada that wouldnt be considered "East Coast". But then, there are things places that would make the list in the article, but aren't there. If you have Niagara Falls, Ontario; then wouldn't you have Hamilton, Ontario, Niagara Falls, NY; Buffalo, NY; Erie, PA; as that would encircle the rest of Lake Erie. Then we could reach out and include Rochester, NY; Syracuse, NY; Burlington, VT. And you have Indianapolis on the list, so work out from there to Danville, IL; Champaign, IL; Bloomington, IL; Normal, IL; Peoria, IL; the Quad Cities on Iowa-Illinois border, and Des Moines, IA.

But really, you couldn't have Des Moines and Montreal in the same population center. Basically, it starts to get kind of Ridiculous.

Boston to Washington, DC makes sense as BosWash. This doesn't

--Dave 03:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

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Why is Escanaba, MI in there! That's in the upper Peninsula of Michigan--an outlier to this chain if there ever was one!

No kidding, Escanaba is over 200 miles from Milwaukee, 300 from Chicago and 400 from Detroit. It's even over 100 miles from Green Bay (the closest city on the list to Escanaba) and no one in their right mind would mistake that for a major urban area.

Contents 1 Odd inclusions 2 Possibly outmoded concept 3 Combined Statistical Areas 4 Population density maps

[edit] Odd inclusions

Why are Dayton and Indianapolis included? They seem to be rather distant from the central expanse of this area. john k 18:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly outmoded concept

At the time the ChiPitts concept was introduced, the assumption (projecting from the 1946-1960 growth patterns) was that this region was going to grow and consolidate (economically) like the BosWash corridor. The developments since the 1973-74 oil embargo, the post-Reagan weakening of unions and subsequent "runaway shops" phenomenon, etc., have made the idea less likely, as so many counties in this range lose population. At the time, nobody called us "The Rust Belt"; we were the industrial heartland of America. --Orange Mike 15:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Combined Statistical Areas

I have changed or redlinked some of the old links for this section, because the existing links were to the narrower central cities of the CSA, rather than to the broader geographical entities the CSA concept is designed to encompass. The Pittsburgh, etc. CSA covers much more than just the Pittsburgh MSA, and needs a separate article. I hope people with expertise in these areas will help me out. --Orange Mike 15:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Population density maps

Based on this map, I would say that Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and probably Columbus are not continuous and should not be included.

The most authoritative source would be Gottman's book, but it does not seem to be available online. --JWB 07:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, this, like the "Odd inclusions" note, relates to my note above under "Possibly outmoded concept": the idea was that continued growth was going to glue these areas together. Under Gottman's original concept, Indy, Cinncy and Columbus were definitely part of the whole thing. (There's a great short summary of this and related ideas in the 1972 edition of the World Almanac, which contained the new U.S. census results.) --Orange Mike 14:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)