ChiPitts

ChiPitts (also called the Great Lakes Megalopolis) is a group of metropolitan areas in the Great Lakes region or Midwest of the United States (along with Western Pennsylvania and Western New York) extending from Pittsburgh to Chicago (the largest city in the megalopolis) and linked by economics, transport, and communications. The estimated population of this megalopolis is 54 million people.

History of the concept

The term was coined in the 1961 book "Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States" by French geographer Jean Gottmann. Gottmann also envisaged the development of two similar megalopolises in the U.S. – BosWash, from Boston to Washington, D.C., and SanSan, from San Francisco to San Diego.

In 1965, Herman Kahn speculated about the future of the three megalopolises in the year 2000, [http://books.google.com/books?id=sxb2iYN20u4C&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=chipitts&source=web&ots=97uGYdoc2K&sig=7ztVxWfIG5EBxODs2dmNd9HLgfE&hl=en#PPA87,M1] referring to their names as "half-frivolous" and not mentioning Gottman.

The Virginia Tech Metropolitan Institute's "Beyond Megalopolis", an attempt to update Gottmann's work with current trends, defines a similar "Midwest" megapolitan area as one of ten such areas in the United States, [ [http://www.mi.vt.edu/uploads/megacensusreport.pdf MegaCensusReport.indd ] ] avoiding the neologism "ChiPitts", which has never come into common use.Fact|date=May 2008

Comparisons and developments

Compared to other regions such as BosWash and Japan's Pacific Belt, ChiPitts is a looser collection of cities, spread over a large area with much suburban and rural space in between, rather than a continuous urbanized area. One review judges it to be "at best a borderline case" of a megalopolis. [ [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12717244.600-review-tales-of-cities-and-megalopolises-.html Review: Tales of cities and megalopolises - 07 July 1990 - New Scientist ] ]

Since Gottmann's original publication, many constituent portions of the corridor have suffered job loss and in some cases diminished populations, in the wake of changes in the U.S. economy and the shift of manufacturing jobs to other portions of the country or overseas.

Related terms

The "Pittsburgh-Chicago Corridor" is an academic urban studies term that describes the area running through the Rust Belt from the Mid-Atlantic to the Western Great Lakes.ChiPitts also roughly has the same boundaries as the Rust Belt.

"Steel City Corridor" describes the area connecting Cleveland to Pittsburgh, via Youngstown-Warren, Ohio and Sharon-Farrell-New Castle, Pennsylvania. Historically, these areas are known as the "Steel Valleys" (Mahoning and Shenango, respectively).Fact|date=May 2008

U.S. Census statistics

The table above does not include:
*Metropolitan Statistical Areas not part of a CSA (see List of United States metropolitan statistical areas by population),
*micropolitan or rural areas (see List of United States micropolitan statistical areas by population),
*or Canada (Toronto is at the centre of the Golden Horseshoe, a densely populated region in Ontario which is home to roughly eight million people, or one quarter of the Canadian population)

List of cities

The major cities in the ChiPitts megalopolis include the following:

* Wisconsin
**Green Bay, Wisconsin Pop: 102,313
**Kenosha, Wisconsin Pop: 96,845
**Appleton, Wisconsin Pop: 70,087
**Oshkosh, Wisconsin Pop: 62,916
**Waukesha, Wisconsin Pop: 68,545
**Racine, Wisconsin Pop: 81,855
**Madison, Wisconsin Pop: 221,551
** Milwaukee, Wisconsin Pop: 602,782
**Janesville, Wisconsin Pop: 59,498
**Beloit, Wisconsin Pop: 35,775
* Illinois
** Aurora, Illinois Pop: 170,617
** Chicago, Illinois Pop: 2,833,321
** Elgin, Illinois Pop: 101,903
** Joliet, Illinois Pop: 142,702
** Naperville, Illinois Pop: 142,901
** Rockford, Illinois Pop: 155,138
** Waukegan, Illinois Pop: 92,066
* Indiana
** Indianapolis, Indiana Pop: 794,160
** Hammond, Indiana Pop: 83,048
**East Chicago, Indiana Pop: 32,414
** Fort Wayne, Indiana Pop: 248,341
** Gary, Indiana Pop: 102,746
** South Bend, Indiana Pop: 107,789
* Michigan
** Ann Arbor, Michigan Pop: 114,024
** Battle Creek, Michigan Pop: 53,364
** Detroit, Michigan Pop: 917,866
** Flint, Michigan Pop: 124,943
** Grand Rapids, Michigan Pop: 197,800
** Kalamazoo, Michigan Pop: 77,145
** Lansing, Michigan Pop: 119,128
* Ohio
** Cleveland, Ohio Pop: 478,403
** Cincinnati, Ohio Pop: 317,361
** Columbus, Ohio Pop: 728,432
**Toledo, Ohio Pop: 313,619
** Akron, Ohio Pop: 217,074
** Dayton, Ohio Pop: 166,179
** Youngstown, Ohio Pop: 82,026
* Pennsylvania
** Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pop: 334,569
** Erie, Pennsylvania Pop: 103,717
* New York
** Buffalo, New York Pop: 282,064
** Niagara Falls, New York Pop: 55,593
* Ontario, Canada
**Windsor, Ontario Pop: 208,402
**Kitchener, Ontario Pop: 209,200
**Hamilton, Ontario Pop: 500,000
**Mississauga, Ontario Pop: 700,000
**Toronto, Ontario Pop: 2,613,900

References