Megalopolis (Chapter 7)

After reading Chapter 7, it is interesting to compare and contrast the Megalopolis region with the Antelope Valley area. The term Megalopolis was coined by Jean Gottman to describe the northeastern urban corridor that is largely comprised by the five major cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C, although this area also includes rural and lightly developed areas. In a similar fashion, the term "Antelope Valley" has been used to describe the region in Los Angeles County largely comprised of the two principle cities, Lancaster and Palmdale, as well as several smaller towns and surrounding rural areas.

However, it is difficult to compare these two regions, since their scales are drastically different. Today, Megalopolis includes about 50,000 square miles and has a population of 52 million, while the Antelope Valley includes only about 1,170 square miles and has a population of about 500,000. It is interesting to consider that the population density of Megalopolis is about 930 people per square mile, while the population density of the Antelope Valley is only about 250 people per square mile. This is a reflection of how Megalopolis is much more urbanized and developed than the Antelope Valley.

These pictures of the Antelope Valley and Megalopolis illustrate the relative scales of these two regions:


Megalopolis:



Also, the environmental hazards that each region faces are dramatically different from each other. Megalopolis is threatened by hurricanes, blizzards, and flooding, while the Antelope Valley is primarily concerned with earthquakes and high temperatures in the summer. However, these two regions face many of the same social challenges due to their high levels of demographic diversity. As we learned in this chapter, Megalopolis is faced with tensions that arise from the many different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups that live in the region. Similarly, while the AV's level of diversity is probably not as high as that experienced in Megalopolis, the AV is still faced with similar issues related to its level of diversity. The pie chart below, provided by the Los Angeles Times, illustrates the racial demographics of the the Antelope Valley as a whole:


However, it should be noted that some areas of the Valley are more or less diverse than this pie chart describes. The LA Times lists Palmdale as the most diverse city in the area, while Acton is the least diverse.

The Antelope Valley is very diverse along socioeconomic lines, as this bar graph of demonstrates:
Household income in thousands of 2000 dollars:

Thus, about 19,579 households in the AV earn $40,000 or less, while approximately 27,154 households earn $120,000 to $250,000. This is a significant wealth gap, so this inevitably leads to tensions between members of different socioeconomic groups, similar to the tensions described in Megalopolis.

Finally, just as Megalopolis continues to grow, the Antelope Valley continues to grow and expand as well. Northern Los Angeles County, including the AV, is the fastest growing area of LA County. The Antelope Valley is described as the "last valley" in LA County, and one of the last areas in Southern California that has the physical capacity to grow, with plenty of open space available for development. While Megalopolis is estimated to add 17 million more residents in the next generation, the AV is also expected to grow but a a much more modest pace. The Southern California Association of Governments estimates that the population of the Antelope Valley will grow to 800,000 by the year 2020.

(Sources: http://www.america2050.org/northeast.html, http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/region/antelope-valley/, http://cameron98.tripod.com/id10.html)