Liquid City

CHAPTER ONE

REVISITING MEGALOPOLIS

The topic of this book is one of the world's most important metropolitan regions—Megalopolis, an area spanning 600 miles from north of Richmond in Virginia to just north of Portland in Maine and from the shores of the northern Atlantic to the Appalachians. Interstate 95 is its spine, with major vertebrae at Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. As one vast conurbation that covers 52,000 square miles and contains 49 million people, Megalopolis is the densest urban agglomeration in the United States, one of the largest city regions on earth, an important element in the national economy, and a vital hub in a globalizing world.

The term megalopolis has an interesting history: it was the name ...