Northeast megalopolis | ||
|---|---|---|
.jpg)    .jpg) Major cities of the Northeast megalopolis (from top to bottom):Boston,New York City,Philadelphia,Baltimore, andWashington, D.C. | ||
| Nicknames: Northeast corridor, BosWash, Boston–Washington corridor, Eastern Seaboard,[1] Atlantic Seaboard | ||
 Interactive map of the Northeastmegalopolis
| ||
| Federal districts |  Washington, D.C. | |
| Largest city |  New York City (8,804,190) | |
| Area | ||
• Total | 56,200 sq mi (146,000 km2) | |
| Population (2024[2]) | ||
• Total | 53,141,158 | |
| • Density | 946/sq mi (365/km2) | |
| GDP | ||
| • Total | $5.229 trillion (2022)[4] | |
| • Per capita | $104,106 (2022) | |
41°N74°W / 41°N 74°W /41; -74
TheNortheast megalopolis, also known as theNortheast Corridor,Acela Corridor,[5]Boston–Washington corridor,BosWash,Bos–Wash corridor orBosNYWash,[6] is the most populousmegalopolis exclusively within the United States, with slightly over 53 million residents as of 2024. The nickname "BosWash" for the region was first used by futurist Herman Kahn in a 1967 essay.[7] It is the world's largest megalopolis by economic output.[8]
Located primarily on theAtlantic Coast in theNortheastern United States, the Northeast megalopolis extends from the northern suburbs ofBoston toWashington, D.C., running roughly southwesterly along a section ofU.S. Route 1,Interstate 95, and theNortheast Corridor train line.[9] It is sometimes defined more broadly to include other urban regions, including theRichmond andHampton Roads regions to the south;Portland, Maine, andManchester, New Hampshire, to the north; andHarrisburg, Pennsylvania, to the west.[10]
The region includes many of the nation's most populated metropolitan areas, including those ofNew York City,Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, andBaltimore.[11] As of 2024, it contained more than 53 million people, about 15% of the U.S. population on less than 2% of the nation's land area, with a population density of about 946 people per square mile (365 people/km2), far more than the U.S. average of 80.5 per square mile[12] (31 people/km2). At least one projection estimates the area will grow to 58.1 million people by 2050.[13][failed verification]
Before the term "megalopolis" became widely used, Walter Hedden identified the growing interdependence of large cities in the Northeast in his 1929 book, specifically regarding the sourcing ofmilk.[14] FrenchgeographerJean Gottmann then popularized the term "megalopolis" in his 1961 study of the region,Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States. Gottmann concluded that the region's cities, while discrete and independent, are uniquely tied to each other through the intermeshing of their suburban zones, taking on some characteristics of a single, massive city: amegalopolis, a term he co-opted froman ancient Greek town of the same name that named itself out of aspirations to become the largest Greek city.
The Northeast megalopolis includes many of the financial and political centers of influence in theUnited States, including the national capital ofWashington, D.C., and all or part of 12 states (from north to south):Maine,New Hampshire,Massachusetts,Rhode Island,Connecticut,New York,New Jersey,Pennsylvania,Delaware,Maryland,West Virginia, andVirginia. The region is linked byInterstate 95 andU.S. Route 1, which start inMiami andKey West, Florida, respectively, in the south, and terminate in Maine at theU.S.-Canadian border. It is also linked by theNortheast Corridor train line, the country's busiest passenger rail line, servingAmtrak and several commuter rail agencies. The development of the interconnected urban corridor in the Northeast initially followed the strategic placement of these rail lines, forming a "railroad spine" before the expansion of the highway systems (such as I-95 and Route 1) and overlapping suburban areas.[15]
As of 2019, the region is home to 52.3 million people, and itsmetropolitan statistical areas are contiguous from Washington, D.C., in the south toBoston in the north.[16] The region is not uniformly populated between the terminal cities, and there are regions nominally within the corridor yet located away from the main transit lines that have been bypassed by urbanization, such as theQuiet Corner in Connecticut.
The region accounts for over 20% of the U.S.gross domestic product.[17] It is home to two of the world's largest stock exchanges, theNew York Stock Exchange andNasdaq, and theheadquarters of the United Nations in New York City, and the executive, legislative, and judicial centers of theU.S. federal government, theWhite House, theU.S. Capitol, and theU.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The region also is home to the headquarters of most of the nation's and some of the world's largest media organizations, includingABC,NBC,CBS,NPR,PBS,Fox,Comcast,The New York Times Company,USA Today,New York Post,The Wall Street Journal,Newsday,The Washington Post, andThe Boston Globe.
The globalheadquarters of many major financial firms, includingJPMorgan Chase,Citigroup,Goldman Sachs,Morgan Stanley,Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac,Capital One,The Vanguard Group, andFidelity, are located in the region. Among theworld's 500 largest companies, 54 are based in the Northeast megalopolis. Among the500 largest U.S.-based companies, 162 are headquartered in the region.[18] The region is the center of the globalhedge fund industry, which is heavily based in New York City and the suburban Connecticut cities ofGreenwich andStamford.[19]
The Northeast megalopolis is home to hundreds of colleges and universities, including several that rank among the world's most elite universities, includingHarvard andMIT, both inCambridge, Massachusetts,Brown inProvidence, Rhode Island,Yale inNew Haven, Connecticut,Columbia in New York City,Princeton inPrinceton, New Jersey, theUniversity of Pennsylvania inPhiladelphia,Johns Hopkins inBaltimore, andGeorgetown in Washington, D.C.[20]
| Rank (U.S.) | Combined statistical area (CSA) | 2020 census | 2010 census | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA | 22,431,833 | 22,327,454 | +0.47% |
| 3 | Washington–Baltimore–Arlington, DC–MD–VA–WV–PA | 10,028,331 | 9,050,192 | +10.81% |
| 7 | Boston–Worcester–Providence, MA–RI–NH–CT | 8,349,768 | 7,871,570 | +6.08% |
| 9 | Philadelphia–Reading–Camden, PA–NJ–DE–MD | 7,379,700 | 7,067,807 | +4.41% |
| 26 | New Haven-Hartford-Waterbury, CT | 2,659,617 | 2,627,399 | +1.23% |
| 35 | Virginia Beach–Chesapeake, VA–NC | 1,857,542 | 1,779,243 | +4.40% |
| Total | 50,047,174 | 48,096,266 | +4.06% | |
| 2020 rank | City/Town | Region | 2020 census | 2010 census | Change | Land area | 2020 population density |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York City |  New York | 8,804,190 | 8,175,133 | +7.69% | 301.5 sq mi (781 km2) | 29,303/sq mi (11,314/km2) |
| 2 | Philadelphia |  Pennsylvania | 1,603,797 | 1,526,006 | +5.10% | 134.2 sq mi (348 km2) | 11,937/sq mi (4,609/km2) |
| 3 | Hempstead | New York | 793,409 | 759,757 | +4.43% | 134.2 sq mi (348 km2) | 6,685/sq mi (2,581/km2) |
| 4 | Washington | District of Columbia | 689,545 | 601,723 | +14.60% | 61.1 sq mi (158 km2) | 11,281/sq mi (4,356/km2) |
| 5 | Boston |  Massachusetts | 675,647 | 617,594 | +9.40% | 48.3 sq mi (125 km2) | 13,977/sq mi (5,397/km2) |
| 6 | Baltimore |  Maryland | 585,708 | 620,961 | −5.68% | 80.9 sq mi (210 km2) | 7,235/sq mi (2,793/km2) |
| 7 | Brookhaven | New York | 485,773 | 486,040 | −0.05% | 531.5 sq mi (1,377 km2) | 1,873/sq mi (723/km2) |
| 8 | Virginia Beach |  Virginia | 459,470 | 437,994 | +4.90% | 244.7 sq mi (634 km2) | 1,878/sq mi (725/km2) |
| 9 | Islip | New York | 339,938 | 335,543 | +1.31% | 162.9 sq mi (422 km2) | 3,275/sq mi (1,264/km2) |
| 10 | Newark |  New Jersey | 311,549 | 277,140 | +12.42% | 24.1 sq mi (62 km2) | 12,904/sq mi (4,982/km2) |
| 11 | Oyster Bay | New York | 301,332 | 293,214 | +2.77% | 169.4 sq mi (439 km2) | 1,800/sq mi (690/km2) |
| 12 | Jersey City | New Jersey | 292,449 | 247,549 | +18.14% | 14.8 sq mi (38 km2) | 19,835/sq mi (7,658/km2) |
| 13 | Chesapeake | Virginia | 249,422 | 222,209 | +12.25% | 338.5 sq mi (877 km2) | 737/sq mi (285/km2) |
| 14 | Arlington[a] | Virginia | 238,643 | 207,627 | +14.94% | 26 sq mi (67 km2) | 9,200/sq mi (3,600/km2) |
| 15 | Norfolk | Virginia | 238,005 | 242,803 | −1.98% | 53.3 sq mi (138 km2) | 4,468/sq mi (1,725/km2) |
| 16 | N. Hempstead | New York | 237,639 | 226,322 | +5.00% | 69.1 sq mi (179 km2) | 4,441/sq mi (1,715/km2) |
| 17 | Richmond | Virginia | 226,610 | 204,214 | +10.97% | 62.6 sq mi (162 km2) | 3,782/sq mi (1,460/km2) |
| 18 | Babylon | New York | 218,223 | 213,603 | +2.16% | 114.2 sq mi (296 km2) | 4,170/sq mi (1,610/km2) |
| 19 | Yonkers | New York | 211,569 | 195,976 | +7.96% | 18.0 sq mi (47 km2) | 11,750/sq mi (4,540/km2) |
| 20 | Worcester | Massachusetts | 206,518 | 181,045 | +14.07% | 37.4 sq mi (97 km2) | 5,528/sq mi (2,134/km2) |
| 21 | Huntington | New York | 204,127 | 203,264 | +0.42% | 137.1 sq mi (355 km2) | 2,162/sq mi (835/km2) |
| 22 | Providence |  Rhode Island | 190,934 | 178,042 | +7.24% | 18.4 sq mi (48 km2) | 10,373/sq mi (4,005/km2) |
| 23 | Newport News | Virginia | 186,247 | 180,719 | +3.06% | 69.0 sq mi (179 km2) | 2,700/sq mi (1,000/km2) |
| 24 | Paterson | New Jersey | 159,732 | 146,199 | +9.26% | 8.4 sq mi (22 km2) | 18,986/sq mi (7,331/km2) |
| 25 | Alexandria | Virginia | 159,467 | 139,966 | +13.93% | 15.0 sq mi (39 km2) | 10,681/sq mi (4,124/km2) |
| 26 | Springfield | Massachusetts | 155,929 | 153,060 | +1.87% | 31.9 sq mi (83 km2) | 4,893/sq mi (1,889/km2) |
| 27 | Ramapo | New York | 148,919 | 126,595 | +17.63% | 61.8 sq mi (160 km2) | 2,400/sq mi (930/km2) |
| 28 | Bridgeport |  Connecticut | 148,654 | 144,229 | +3.07% | 16.1 sq mi (42 km2) | 9,290/sq mi (3,590/km2) |
| 29 | Elizabeth | New Jersey | 137,298 | 124,969 | +9.87% | 12.3 sq mi (32 km2) | 11,145/sq mi (4,303/km2) |
| 30 | Hampton | Virginia | 137,148 | 137,436 | −0.21% | 51.5 sq mi (133 km2) | 2,665/sq mi (1,029/km2) |
| 31 | Stamford | Connecticut | 135,470 | 122,643 | +10.46% | 37.6 sq mi (97 km2) | 3,601/sq mi (1,390/km2) |
| 32 | Lakewood | New Jersey | 135,158 | 92,843 | +45.58% | 24.7 sq mi (64 km2) | 5,476/sq mi (2,114/km2) |
| 33 | New Haven | Connecticut | 134,023 | 129,779 | +3.27% | 18.7 sq mi (48 km2) | 7,170/sq mi (2,770/km2) |
| 34 | Allentown | Pennsylvania | 125,845 | 118,032 | +6.62% | 17.5 sq mi (45 km2) | 7,165/sq mi (2,766/km2) |
| 35 | Hartford | Connecticut | 121,054 | 124,775 | −2.98% | 17.4 sq mi (45 km2) | 6,965/sq mi (2,689/km2) |
| 36 | Cambridge | Massachusetts | 118,403 | 105,162 | +12.59% | 6.4 sq mi (17 km2) | 18,512/sq mi (7,148/km2) |
| 37 | Smithtown | New York | 116,296 | 117,801 | −1.28% | 111.4 sq mi (289 km2) | 1,000/sq mi (390/km2) |
| 38 | Manchester |  New Hampshire | 115,644 | 109,565 | +5.55% | 33.1 sq mi (86 km2) | 3,497/sq mi (1,350/km2) |
| 39 | Lowell | Massachusetts | 115,554 | 106,519 | +8.48% | 13.6 sq mi (35 km2) | 8,490/sq mi (3,280/km2) |
| 40 | Waterbury | Connecticut | 114,403 | 110,366 | +3.66% | 28.5 sq mi (74 km2) | 4,011/sq mi (1,549/km2) |
| 41 | Edison | New Jersey | 107,588 | 99,967 | +7.62% | 30.1 sq mi (78 km2) | 3,578/sq mi (1,381/km2) |
| 42 | Brockton | Massachusetts | 105,643 | 93,810 | +12.61% | 21.3 sq mi (55 km2) | 4,952/sq mi (1,912/km2) |
| 43 | Columbia[b] | Maryland | 104,681 | 93,810 | +11.59% | 31.9 sq mi (83 km2) | 3,278/sq mi (1,266/km2) |
| 44 | Woodbridge | New Jersey | 103,639 | 99,585 | +4.07% | 23.3 sq mi (60 km2) | 4,456/sq mi (1,720/km2) |
| 45 | Quincy | Massachusetts | 101,636 | 92,271 | +10.15% | 16.6 sq mi (43 km2) | 6,133/sq mi (2,368/km2) |
| 46 | Lynn | Massachusetts | 101,253 | 90,329 | +12.09% | 10.7 sq mi (28 km2) | 9,249/sq mi (3,571/km2) |
| 47 | New Bedford | Massachusetts | 101,079 | 95,072 | +6.32% | 20.0 sq mi (52 km2) | 5,054/sq mi (1,951/km2) |
The total GDP of the Northeast megalopolis is $5.6 trillion, of which around $2.3 trillion is from theNew York metropolitan area.[4] As of 2023, the Northeast megalopolis would have the third-highest GDP of any nation if it was its own country, ahead ofGermany ($4.7 trillion).
Due to its proximity toEurope, theEastern coast of the United States was among the first regions of the continent to be widelysettled by Europeans. Over time, the cities and towns founded on the East Coast had the advantage of age over most other parts of the U.S. However, it was theNortheast in particular that developed most rapidly, owing to a number of fortuitous circumstances.
While possessing neither particularly rich soil—one exception being New England'sConnecticut River Valley—nor exceptional mineral wealth, the region still supports someagriculture andmining.[23] Theclimate is temperate and not particularly prone tohurricanes ortropical storms, which increase furthersouth. However, the most important factor was the "interpenetration of land and sea,"[24] which makes for exceptional harbors, such as those at theChesapeake Bay, thePort of New York and New Jersey,Narragansett Bay inProvidence, Rhode Island, andBoston Harbor. The coastline to the north is rocky and little sheltered, whereas to the south it is smooth and does not feature as many bays or inlets that might function as natural harbors. Also featured are navigablerivers that lead deeper into the heartlands, such as theHudson,Delaware, andConnecticut rivers, which all support large populations and were necessary to early settlers for development. Therefore, while other parts of the country exceeded the region in raw resource value, they were not as easily accessible, and often, access to them necessarily had to pass through the Northeast first.
The Northeast played a significant role in thefoundation of the United States during the latecolonial era and in theAmerican Revolutionary War. Pre-revolutionary events like theGaspee affair, theBoston Massacre,Boston Tea Party, and theFirst Continental Congress all occurred in the region. In 1775, theBattles of Lexington and Concord, the first major battle of the Revolution, occurred inMassachusetts a few miles away fromBoston. Many of the most significant battles took place in the region, including theBattle of Bunker Hill, theBattle of Monmouth, theBattle of Trenton, theBattle of Princeton, as well as several significant military campaigns such as thePhiladelphia Campaign, theNew York and New Jersey Campaign, theBoston Campaign, and theYorktown Campaign. The surrender of the British occurred in the south end of the megalopolis after theSiege of Yorktown in 1781. Other significant events that occurred during the Revolution at this time in the region include theSecond Continental Congress, the creation of theArticles of Confederation, thesigning of theDeclaration of Independence, and theConstitutional Convention.
During theCivil War, while most of the region did not experience fighting, there were many significant battles in the southern end of the region, particularly inVirginia. Major battles such as theBattle of Gettysburg, theBattle of Antietam, theBattles of Bull Run, theBattle of Fredericksburg, theBattle of Chancellorsville, and theBattles of Petersburg all occurred in the region. Additionally,Richmond acted as the capital of theConfederacy.
In 1800, the region included the only three U.S. cities with populations of over 25,000:Philadelphia,New York City, andBaltimore. By 1850, New York City and Philadelphia alone had over 300,000 residents while Baltimore, Boston,Brooklyn (at that time a separate city from New York),Cincinnati, andNew Orleans had over 100,000: five were within one 400-mile strip while the last two were each four hundred miles away from the next closest metropolis. The immense concentration of people in one relatively densely packed area gave that region considerable sway through population density over the rest of the nation, which was solidified in 1800 whenWashington, D.C., only 38 miles southwest of Baltimore, was made the nation's capital. According to Gottmann, capital cities "will tend to create for and around the seats of power a certain kind of built environment, singularly endowed, for instance, with monumentality, stressing status and ritual, a trait that will increase with duration."[25] Thetransportation andtelecommunications infrastructure that the capital city mandated also spilled over into the rest of the strip.
Additionally, the proximity to Europe, as well as the prominence ofEllis Island as animmigrant processing center, made New York City and cities nearby a "landingwharf for European immigrants," who represented an ever replenished supply of diversity of thought and determined workers.[26] By contrast, the other major source of trans-oceanic immigrants wasChina, which was farther from the U.S. West Coast than Europe was from the East, and whose ethnicity made them targets ofracial discrimination, creating barriers to their seamless integration into American society. By 1950, the region held over one-fifth of the total U.S. population, with a density nearly 15 times that of the national average.[27]
The region has been home to the richest city in the nation for over 200 years:Hartford, Connecticut held the title from the pre–Civil War industrial era until about 1929, andNew York City has held it since.[citation needed]Loudoun andFairfax County, Virginia are the wealthiest counties in the country, and Connecticut'sGold Coast has one of the highest population densities of families worth over $30 million USD.[citation needed]
The concept of megalopolises originated withJean Gottmann, a French geographer who wrote the 1961 bookMegalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States, whose central theory was that the cities between Washington, D.C., and Boston together form a sort of cohesive, integrated "supercity." He took the termmegalopolis from asmall Greek town that was settled in theClassical Era with the hope it would "become the largest of the Greek cities". The city still exists today, but is largely a sleepy agricultural community. However, the dream of the city's founders, Gottmann argued, was being realized in the Northeastern U.S. in the 1960s with the ascent of the region to global political, academic, and economic prominence.[28]
Gottmann defined two criteria for a group of cities to be a true megalopolis: "polynuclear structure" and "manifold concentration"—that is, the presence of multiple urban nuclei, which exist independently of each other yet are integrated in a special way relative to sites outside their area.
While the major cities of the Northeast megalopolis all are distinct, independent cities, they are closely linked by transportation and telecommunications. Neil Gustafson showed in 1961 that the vast majority of phone calls originating in the region terminate elsewhere in the region, and it is only a minority that are routed to elsewhere in the United States or abroad.[29] In 2010 automobiles carried 80% of Boston-Washington corridor travel;intercity buses 8–9%;Amtrak 6%; and airlines 5%.[30] Business ventures unique to the region have sprung up that capitalize on the interconnectedness of the megalopolis, such as airline shuttle services that operate short flights between Boston and New York City and New York City and Washington, D.C. that leave every half-hour,[31] Amtrak'sAcela Express high-speed rail service from Washington to Boston, and theChinatown bus lines, which offer economy transportation between the cities'Chinatowns and elsewhere. Other bus lines operating in the megalopolitan area owned by national or international corporations have also appeared, such asBoltBus andMegabus. These ventures indicate not only the dual "independent nuclei"/"interlinked system" nature of the megalopolis, but also a broad public understanding of and capitalization on the concept.
In 2007, Gottmann's "megalopolis" concept was largely supported byJohn Rennie Short, who authored an update to Gottmann's book,Liquid City: Megalopolis and the Contemporary Northeast.National Geographic Society released a map in 1994 of the region at the time of theAmerican Revolutionary War and in present day, which borrowed Gottmann's book's title.U.S. SenatorClaiborne Pell wrote a book,Megalopolis Unbound in 1966, which summarized and expanded on Gottman's original book to outline his vision for a cohesive transportation policy in the region, including his state of Rhode Island.
In 1967,futuristsHerman Kahn and Anthony Wiener coined the term "BosWash" to predict that the region would emerge as the sort of megalopolis initially described by Gottmann. Their ideas were part of a study commissioned in 1965 by theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, which published the results of the commission's findings in 1967 as "Toward the Year 2000: Work in Progress", a special issue of their journalDædalus.[32]`[33] In their portion, Kahn and Wiener, discussingurbanization, began by writing:[34]
The United States in the year 2000 will probably see at least three gargantuan megalopolises. We have labeled these—only half frivolously—"Boswash," "Chipitts," and "SanSan."
BosWash was described as "the megalopolis that will extend from Washington to Boston" along "an extremely narrow strip of the North Atlantic coast."[34]ChiPitts, mentioned as being fromChicago toPittsburgh but extending east toRochester, New York, was laid out as "on Lake Erie and the southern and western shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario" and SanSan as "an even more narrow strip on the West Coast" from eitherSanta Barbara orSan Francisco toSan Diego inCalifornia.[34]
The three terms gained use in the period immediately following publication ofThe Year 2000, withNewsweek using them in 1967[35] andChanging Times featuring them in 1968.[36] However, the names are currently not used in any official capacity, and, of the three, onlyBosWash is described inRandom House Dictionary asinformal.[37] BosNYWash is a variant term that specifically referencesNew York City,[38] which is a central hub and has long been by far the largest metropolis in the region and the country. In 1971,The Bosnywash Megalopolis was published.[39]
Isaac Asimov predicted in 1964 that by 2014, "Boston-to-Washington, the most crowded area of its size on the earth, will have become a single city with a population of over 40,000,000".[40]
In a 2005 study titledBeyond Megalopolis, researchers atVirginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute views the NortheastMegapolitan Area as extending beyond Boston and Washington – pastPortland, Maine andRichmond, Virginia – and described it as one of ten such areas in the United States. The authors analyzedGoogle search results to determine plausible names for the regions, rejecting terms such asBosWash, stating: "We decided that combined place names seemed contrived and offered little chance for eventual adoption. Therefore, labels such as 'BosWash' to refer to the Northeast or 'SanSac' in reference to the combined San Francisco and Sacramento metropolitan areas were not considered."[41]
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