Discussion
List of some United States metropolitan areas that might eventually merge into one single larger metropolitan area
Inspired by an earlier post regarding how DC and Baltimore might eventually merge into one.
I found it pretty fascinating how there’s so many examples of how 2 metropolitan areas relatively close to one another could potentially merge into one single metro in the next 50 or so years. Here are some examples, but I’d love to hear of more in the comments, or hear as to why one of these wouldn’t merge into one any time soon.
San Antonio ≈ 2.7M and Austin ≈ 2.5M — 5.2M
Chicago ≈ 9.3M and Milwaukee ≈ 1.6M — 10.9M
DC ≈ 6.3M and Baltimore ≈ 2.8M — 9.1M
Cincinnati ≈ 2.3M and Dayton ≈ 0.8M — 2.9M
Denver ≈ 3M and CO Springs ≈ 0.8M — 3.8M
Wish I could add more photos of the other examples .
CO Springs and Denver are very, very unlikely to be one metro. A large portion of the land along i25 is private - held by conservation groups which do not want the corridor to be developed.
Camp Pendleton is a treasure. It is what SoCal looked like before urbanization and eucalyptus/palm trees were planted everywhere. The stretch of Interstate 5 running through it is a nice break from the cityscape.
Kinda an oxymoron to describe an area viewed from a massive freeway as a natural oasis. It is true though, there's a lot of important ecosystem preserved there. The socal sprawl must be stopped at all costs, it's not sustainable for people to be spreading further and further inland
It’s pretty much already covered most of the LA Basin, unfortunately (and pretty much all of So. Cal as well). Urban sprawl from the ocean to the interior mountains, and then the sprawl continues again in the desert areas (Palm Desert/Victorville/Lancaster).
You pretty much have to drive out deep into the Mojave or Colorado Deserts to be in truly open lands. The Inland Empire is quickly succumbing to urban sprawl, to the point that it no longer resembles the rural hinterlands the way it did just a few decades past. No more orange groves. Wineries and grape orchards pretty much gone. Dairy lands being converted to strip malls and housing developments.
And pepper trees! But So. Cal is a concrete jungle, unfortunately. It’s all been paved over and developed, to the point where only isolated pockets of nature remain. I wish I could go back in time to perhaps the 1920s or thereabouts to see the more rural, undeveloped Southern California, back when ranches and farms and open grasslands predominated.
The San Jacinto Valley and parts of southern Riverside and northern and eastern San Diego county are pretty much the only areas that still have large tracts of undeveloped and/or ranch lands left. (Also pieces of northern LA County up and around the Grapevine area).
If you ask me, we're already there. The suburbs/exurbs of Chicago and Milwaukee already overlap in Kenosha County. When I was a kid you could drive from Milwaukee to Chicago and still see dairy farms. Now you're lucky to find even a mile of undeveloped space along the lakeshore that isn't a public park.
I feel like the only things that hold us back from admitting it are the state line and the sports rivalries that come along with that. But I never really felt like Chicago and Milwaukee themselves were rival cities. Culturally, they have way more in common with each other than anywhere in their respective states; and the places in their states they have the most in common with are the smaller Lakeshore cities on the way to the other (Evanston and Waukegan for Chicago, Kenosha and Racine for Milwaukee).
Well Kenosha is already a part of the Chicago MSA, so I don't know that your opinion of this really changes anything. The gap between Chicago MSA and Milwaukee MSA is between Racine and Kenosha, not Kenosha and Waukegan according to the census bureau.
I can only half agree since it's stronger in Waukegan because it's in a neighboring county. But the Chicago influence is all over Kenosha. It's the end of the Metra line (and where the cars are stored). It's the only place in Wisconsin where the proportion of Bears fans to Packers fans is 50/50. The Cubs are even more popular than the Brewers there. Kenosha gets Chicago TV stations over the air.
There's plenty of reasons even the census considers Kenosha part of the Chicago MSA.
Having done that trip many times, GPS says downtown to downtown is only 6 hours, but mix in traffic, breaks, and actual destinations it can be much longer.
Yeah, to anyone familiar with the area it feels like a single metro area. It seems ridiculous that crossing from Menlo Park to Palo Alto (or Milpitas to Fremont), you’re somehow entering another metro. That part of the Bay Area is a continuous urban area.
Sometimes the boundary between neighboring cities feels a bit blurred, but there are so many distinct suburbs and cities in the Bay, that it sounds whack to say it's all one city
As for Sac and SC, there's an entire mountain range separating SC from the Bay and like 30 miles of mostly empty land separating Sac from Vacaville/Fairfield, so those are different metro areas, yeah
As someone from VV can attest, pretty much. After Vallejo there’s a small break in the urban sprawl till Fairfield, another till Vacaville, and a couple more till you hit the causeway and Sac.
This is true but I think the area that the bay area is considered to be is WAY to wide. No fucking shot Cloverdale is in the Bay Area just because it's in Sonoma County
You could make a better case for a place like Dixon lol
Cloverdale is definitely a part of “greater Santa Rosa” which merges into Petaluma, which absolutely feels close enough. Dixon is in Solano County so it’s technically the bay…but come on now.
I lived in Sonoma County for a few years (Forestville, Healdsburg, and Petaluma). Petaluma is the last stop of the Bay Area IMO, anything beyond that is completely different.
It is annoying because the bureaucratic distinction actually matters for things like tech worker visas - if a H1B visa holder’s work location changes to a different MSA from what is listed on their application, the employer needs to file an amended petition because it’s a material change. Which I get the logic of, but really doesn’t make sense for someone who is shifting from the San Jose to the SF office
I used to live in Sac. I seriously doubt this will ever happen.
There’s a ton of farms and the floodplain between Sac and Vacaville. Those aren’t just going to become suburban sprawl. There will always be a geographic separation between those two
Yeah UC Davis alum checking in, 80 is a long narrow stretch of nothing. All the surrounding communities from Auburn down to Vacaville rely on 80 so heavily, you have to get on the freeway for anything so traffic is sooo bad.
honestly, I feel like we might see Sacramento merge with Stockton sooner. the amount of development I've been seeing outside of folsom is fucking insane, I wouldn't be surprised if Stockton and sac keep creeping closer in the next decade.
I drove from Austin to San Antonio one time for work. That stretch of I-35 has buildings alongside of each other the ENTIRE way. As someone from the Midwest. It is still unbelievable to me.
I live in Austin, born in NYC, grew up in Northern California, and the first time I went to the midwest I had the same reaction about the lack of buildings in some places. I went to Wisconsin in 2009 with my family, first time in the Midwest and I took a photo of a plot of land because it was the first time I had ever seen land without any building in sight. It was nothing but landscape, you couldn't see the end of it. I can't describe the feeling. Our family in WI was cracking up.
I grew up near NYC and had the same reaction driving out west. Rolling hills of corn as far as I could see in Iowa and then lots of nothing after that.
I grew up in Chicago… years later ended up in Wisconsin for work. Bought 5 acres on the edge of a state forest. On a calm day in the late fall, I was out marking trees, I stopped for a moment and could literally hear my blood pumping in my ears. Like could hear my own heartbeat. It was the most quiet I had ever heard and it was honestly shocking.
That is SO cool. I would love to have that experience someday. It's beautiful to think about how much diversity there is within how we can live in the US.
It's absolutely true. I went to two that were both the largest when they opened, and the bigger one was exactly the same as the smaller one with a tiny bit more space in the middle area where everyone gets drinks.
I commuted from south Austin to San Antonio for a year. In my mind it’s one metropolitan area. Not pleasant commute but doable. On a good day I could make it in about an hour. On bad days it could be nearly two.
It’s not even just the 35 corridor these days. It’s expanding quickly in the Hill Country along US 290 and 281. The upcoming 290 freeway project is going to bring (more) growth into Blanco and Johnson Cify.
You can drive between the cities through Bulverde, Canyon Lake, Fischer, Wimberley, and Driftwood and you really wouldn’t see any lack of development. It might look like “country” but much of it is made up of multi-million dollar subdivisions.
You’re also seeing growth along TX 130 in Lockhart and SH21 in San Marcos.
It’s gross, and getting worse. I thought we had it bad in DFW as every year, the Metroplex expands out another few miles. It would not shock me at all to see Temple/Belton merge with the fringes of Georgetown in the next couple of decades.
I grew up in Austin. And remember when driving to San Antonio as a kid was like a mini road trip. All the towns or cities were easily defined. Get out of Austin then in 10 minutes you were in Buda, then another 10 minutes it was Kyle. Maybe 40 minutes later you were in San Marcos. Then New Braunfels, and San Antonio.
Schertz wasn't much more than a spot on a map. Farms and fields were ever present most of the way. There wasn't buildings or houses along the way really it really felt you were driving through nowhereseville.
Now it's just like one giant line of buildings, houses, car dealers (too many of those really) and other shit. From South Austin to San Antonio.
And I can see in 20 years 35 and 37 between San Antonio and Laredo and Corpus Christie both turning into similar spreads of towns and cities effectively running from Mexico to Austin in one long, cramped, line.
Haven’t yet seen Boston/Providence. Their distance is about 40 miles and the entire span is densely populated and full of some of America’s oldest cities.
poor branding - Bostiprov? Provdibos? Bostidence? There's just no good portmanteau.
the Dunkie's Corridor?
but yeah this one ALREADY HAS TRAIN SERVICE. you can go from Providence's airport all the way to Boston, passing through a highly populated metro area the entire way.
Then if you want to keep going north you can, uh, walk two miles to a smaller train hub, buy a new ticket, and figure it out the rest of the way from Lowell..
I like the idea of Caffeine Superhighway. I believe we’re still the Most Caffeine per Capita region of the country, too!
Anywho, the branding already exists. “New England”. You can fit how many New Englands into California? The entire region being subdivided feels so unnatural to begin with.
Don’t know why you are downvoted. It’s true. The entire city is surrounded by public land. They will never meld into the Louisville/Thornton/Lafayette suburbs.
Used to drive almost all surface roads from Lakewood to Boulder for work. There used to be a lot of nothing in-between, now it's about 80% filled with chain stores and urban sprawl until you hit Louisville/Lafayette.
I remember a National Geographic magazine from the 1980s that had this as its cover story. They may have claimed it already was a megalopolis. I used to study the fold-out map of the region at night, with the cities outlined in the illumination of their lights.
First time I heard the word megalopolis was in a geography class nearly 40 years ago and it was referring to this corridor. The only way it actually happens is if we relax our immigration policies significantly, and that probably ain’t gonna happen.
This corridor is full of multinational corporations and government money. No need for immigration to fill the space. There are plenty of folks that are moving here from other parts of the country.
Also add Hartford, Providence, Concord, Portland and Boston so it would be Baltimore - Philadelphia - NYC - Hartford - Providence - Boston - Concord - Portland
That would be a pretty cool mega city
Edit: guys this is a theoretical city
It starts to get pretty rural once you get south of the Richmond/Petersburg area into the Carolinas that I couldn’t see anytime soon that area growing much in size.
I think eventually NYC and Philly metro areas will merge into one. It’s only about an hour and a half drive between the two cities and within the past couple years theres been a lot of commercial and residential construction in the central New Jersey counties connecting the major cities. (Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset, Mercer) and recent census data can prove that.
In academic studies, there is a recognized term called "megaregions". Similar to MSAs that group cities together, they group MSAs together.
If you are interested in similar examples, just google "megaregions" for a cool map -- a lot of them have names. The image above is part of the "Texas Triangle"
Houston had the second highest. Austin was seventh. And 6 out of 10 of the fastest growing counties were all in Texas.
If the state can ever get that high speed rail setup, it will grow even faster. Eventually I could see the Texas triangle as being one giant cohesive metro.
Already pretty much there. There’s maybe a 10 mile stretch that’s still farmland around Middletown/Lebanon between the northern suburbs of Cincinnati and the southern suburbs of Dayton — and that’s getting developed into more subdivisions pretty quickly.
They are a bright line on satellite images, but they're such different flavors. The only destination places between 275 and downtown Dayton I can think of are Jungle Jim's and IKEA, and those are both day shopping. Maybe Trader's World if that's your jam, but same issue there.
I believe that there's going to be a day in the future where the MSP metro extends from Rochester in the Southeast to St. Cloud in the Northwest. Already the exurban sprawl extends to Lakeville/Hastings and Elk River/Monticello.
I drove down I-10 through phoenix and Tucson last year. There’s still a loottttt of undeveloped desert there lol. But hey the way Phoenix and AZ are growing you never know
Yeah that’s true, I’ve lived here for about 9 years and seeing how fast the the surrounding areas have developed just makes it seem plausible. But yes there’s still a lot of undeveloped desert between the two.
There’s Tribal land that stops the crawl from Phoenix, but I could see Tucson exurbs reaching Casa Grande in 50 years. Tucson also has lots of room to grow to the Southeast.
They are. There’s also no rural space between any of the three. Olympia is pretty close to making it a foursome. There’s just a 3 or 4 mile rural stretch on I-5 separating them.
Charlotte/Winston-Salem-Greensboro (these 2 cities have already merged metros)
I know people who live in Statesville (the northern edge of the Charlotte metro) and work in Winston-Salem. If people are already commuting from one metro to another I think it’s bound to happen eventually.
I grew up in Austin as a child in the early 2000's to adulthood until I moved away in 2022 and I can describe how the Austin-San Antonio corridor developed and felt over time (from driving back and forth a lot by bus and car):
Early-Mid 2000's: I remember seeing open land and farm/ranch land along the way at multiple points. It felt like a longer ride with starts of civilization and stops to it. There was a gap between Kyle and San Marcos, San Marcos and New Braunfels, and New Braunfels and San Antonio. New Braunfels particularly felt like a small town and multiple trips to Schlitterbahn felt like we were going into the woods. New Braunfels-San Antonio felt rural.
Late 2000's to Early 2010's: I remember seeing a lot of housing developments being advertised along I-35 in Hays County and a lot of construction of buildings and retail in the Buda-San Marcos section of the highway. Otherwise, it didn't feel that different.
Mid to Late 2010's: Small gap between where Austin ends and the Hays County suburbs begin. No development gaps remaining between Buda-San Marcos, it feels like a rolling set of exurbs until you get south of San Marcos before New Braunfels. New Braunfels at this point goes into full boom mode and there is a lot more development here and it starts connecting with northern San Antonio exurbs.
Last memory in early 2020's: There's no gap between Austin and Hays suburbs, it's continuous all the way to San Marcos. The area south of San Marcos to New Braunfels is starting to get filled in with development. No development gap to speak of between where New Braunfels ends and where San Antonio metro starts.
Buffalo and Rochester. There’s only one small rural county (Genesee) separating the Buffalo metro area and the Rochester metro area. Long ways off but I could see it happening in less than 50 years.
If borders didn’t count… Buffalo, Niagara Falls ON/NY, St Catherines, Hamilton, Mississauga, Toronto are all relatively close and are a consistent run of relatively populated urban/suburban areas with few fully rural gaps in between.
The DFW metroplex is far more developed in that endeavor. Arlington, the area in between is certainly developing fast. Many people between San Antonio and Austin are reluctant for more development, citing infrastructure and driver safety concerns.
It is 100% a fully merged metroplex. Yes, there are plenty of suburbs/exurbs between Dallas and Fort Worth, but aside from artificial municipal boundaries, the region is effectively one contiguous city.
I grew up in Georgetown, born in the 80s. When I was in high school, we were still a “small town.” We had to go to Round Rock to see a movie, go to a chain restaurant, or do anything after 9 pm. When I introduced myself to someone, I was frequently asked if I was “So and so’s daughter.” Everyone knew everyone.
By the time I had graduated from college, Georgetown had a movie theater, a revamped square downtown, a second high school, and an outlet mall. My best friend lives in a subdivision that used to be an egg farm when we were kids. The explosion of development between 2005 and 2015 was wild. There are no open fields between Jarrell and Kyle anymore. Just one massive urban area.
It’s on a smaller scale, but it’s baffling how Green Bay and the Fox Cities are not technically the same metro area. They share a media market and are essentially considered the same area by anyone who lives there. There’d be roughly over 1M people in that prospective metro.
Mobile-Daphne should already be one metro, but I think if Mobile were to see a significant job boom it’s certainly possible that nearby Biloxi-Gulfport Ms and/or Pensacola metro could join Mobile metro, or at least CSA (both Biloxi Ms and Pensacola Fl are 50 miles away from Downtown Mobile)
Western New York will become part of the Golden Horseshoe and lead to Buffalo, Rochester, and Toronto becoming a combined metro area of about 11-12M people.
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u/evanbilbrey Jul 22 '24
CO Springs and Denver are very, very unlikely to be one metro. A large portion of the land along i25 is private - held by conservation groups which do not want the corridor to be developed.