Honestly, the only megalopolis that feels like a megalopolis is the northeast one. As someone who's been to 49 states. The other so-called megalopolises aren't big enough, connected enough or filled in enough.
I am in agreement, but I think the reason for me is different. I find the more suburban or less dense ones really don’t seem as big to me. The northeast is old, and has a lot of non suburban development, to the point where it just feels bigger than everything else
I feel like the cascade Megapolis is the only other real one yes there’s a gap between Olympia and tacoma but that’s a military base and Native American reservation
Northeast 12/48 has less than 25% of the USA population, but 8/32 NFL teams. 3/4 NFC East, 3/4 AFC East, 2/4 AFC North. Most Dutch, English, French, and Germans live within a commuting distance of the English Channel or the Rhine River. Northeast doesn't even have a ferry schedule besides Staten Island. The main idea is Brookings "Why Midsize Metros Deserve our Attention" answers your misconceptions. 75% reside in a metropolitan statistical area since the micro cutoff grew to 100000. The fact is both EU & USA had to commute well past a regular metro area into a mega.
One thing to consider about Michigan: both Detroit and Grand Rapids have *local* income taxes if you live and work in them. If you live in a suburb and only drive in to either city for work, the income tax is cut in half. This incentivises people to move out of the city-proper but stay in the metro area, so the decline of those cities may be a little exaggerated.
The city of Pontiac and Flint have the same thing. Not only can it give workers and incentive to live outside the city limits, but it can also give new businesses a reason to set up just outside the city as well; they can attract workers with no city taxes, boast that they are beings jobs to the area, but not actually doing much to help the city.
Not to mention white flight. The Detroit metropolitan region still has a population of around four million. Michigan's population has remained relatively steady at around 10 million for several decades.
It’s starting to merge in with with the Detroit area, especially since the Ann Arbor area of the metro is doing better than the Detroit side. It’s a bit similar to the Cincinnati/Dayton situation. Nothing against Toledo personally or anything.
I live in the South, far away from Toledo, but I too was definitely noticing y'all got skipped. I passed through northwest Ohio on a trip this summer; lots of pretty land up there. Spent the night in Lima; nice folks there. Gotta recognize the 419. Home of the 2022 MAC football champion Toledo Rockets, too.
Minneapolis is outside your boundaries, but it has been one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest. And the metro never saw declines like the other more rust belt cities.
Was there any decline in Minneapolis with the mills moving away from downtown? Or did they relocate locally to keep people and jobs in the area? I'm more familiar with Duluth where my daughter had a job for a year, which is of course quite the rust belt city. I love it there with its terrain and old architecture but it's had quite a population loss. She's now looking to move to Minneapolis.
@@timmmahhhh there was, but not nearly as drastic as other rust belt cities. Peak of 521k, bottomed out to 370k, now around 425k. They have one of the highest number of fortune 500 companies per capita.
You can't mention Minneapolis though without mentioning St Paul. They are called the twin cities after all. I'm just going off of memory here so I may be incorrect but, isn't the St Paul side more of the run down, sketchy, rusty side? I believe it was the city that took the biggest hit to its population, just like many rust belt cities. The twin cities are so close that you could make an argument that they are almost like one city. I think of it like Minneapolis is the part of town that didn't take as much of a hit and St Paul is the part that did. All of the rust belt cities had parts of town that were affected more or less than others.
I live in even the most conservative definition. People don’t really notice the metro Detroit area and/or they have some major misconceptions. Detroit, Toledo, Ann Arbor, Windsor and Flint all blend together with no real disconnect.
It's not until between Birch Run and Bridgeport that there's any significant gap between that and the distinct Saginaw/Midland/Bay City metro region. 8 miles is all that really disconnects Toledo from Sanford, MI (Where any further NW and you'd see rural areas again) as a continuous metropolitan region for nearly 200 miles.
If you're going to break down each city make sure to do it by metropolitan area, in this video it's done by municipal boundaries and skews how these cities have changed over time. A lot of these cities haven't actually declined in population, but have been hollowed out by their suburbs, which are different municipalities and do not get included. Or it in the case of Toronto, it leaves out a significant portion of population and growth.
Ontario provincial government merely redefined the boundaries of Greater Toronto. Basically a metropolitan wide annexation and hence a big increase in the "city population." No different than the past redefinition of Kitchner-Waterloo.
I agree. That's why whenever I compare cities or talk about their size, I always mention the city limits along with the metropolitan area and the city's size in square miles. It also helps to lnow if there are other cities of similar size that help make up the metro pop. It's helpful also to know the MSA and CBSA.
Came here to say the same thing. You would think Columbus dominates Ohio based on this presentation when it is 3rd. Cleveland is the largest metro area but Cincinnati can be argued to be bigger if you count its KY area or Dayton. Either way. Cleveland and Cincinnati are both notable cities on the world stage just one tier below NY, LA, or DC. Similar to Manchester or Nice. Columbus is regionally important but few folks outside the Midwest would find a reason to go there. I would place it similar to Tours or Cardiff.
Agree, for example the metro regions of Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh are all very similar in size but the cities have very different sizes. Columbus and Indianapolis have annexed many of their former suburbs and thus appear to have growth while in the others the suburbs have grown considerably at the expense of the core whose boundaries have not changed.
Lake Effect is no joke. Some people think it's simply a weaker winter storm but all i usually say to them is you just have to experience it to really notice the different compared to a regular snowstorm
Lake effect, where we measure snow in feet not inches. Love it when the weather people in some areas hype less than a foot of snow. I just laugh. It is sad now though that they hype the weather like they do the news. Les than half a foot and they are screaming in to the tv, STAY AT HOME, STAY OFF THE ROADS. GONNA GET UP TO 6 INCHES! DANGEROUS CONDITIONS!
Worst storm we got was in 2014. We only got two feet in Amherst but Orchard Park got 12 and collapsed a bunch of peoples' houses. But that's pretty uncommon. Most winters were only moderately snowy.
Props to my guy for saying Louisville right. Also Cincinnati WAS declining in population but has recently started to gain population within the city itself
i love Michigan lived all over the state from Detroit, grand blank, Clio, ypsilanti,st helen, and long lake hale,and now battle creek i absolutely am grateful to be from here regardless of what issues michigan has, love the video
While many of these cities have gone through some type of decline in the past half-century, most of them still have some very nice suburban areas outside the city. Honestly, Chicago has some of the most beautiful suburbs in the country, very walkable often as well. The Midwest may also be a hotspot for climate refugees in the future decades, which could be an interesting topic to research.
Thanks for mentioning Canada! I’m from the other end of Canada but that Erie peninsula is home to almost half of all Canadians, so it’s very important to us!
@@295g295 kinda. So there’s this thing in southern Ontario called the Golden Horseshoe, which goes from Ajax to Niagara Falls, and it’s pretty much a continuous urban area, with a population of about 7-9 million
@@295g295 Not quite. The Lake Ontario lakeshore is continuously urbanized from Oshawa to Hamilton but then there's not much until St Catherines. There's two 20-30km rural gaps between Toronto and Buffalo. -Raised in Buffalo, Live in Toronto
Hey, it looks like most of your comments are either people correcting you or adding info. Nothing wrong with that, but since you're a smaller channel and don't hear it as much as the big youtubers, I just wanted to say I really love your videos and the topics they cover. The vid quality has gotten a lot more solid over time, and I seriously look forward to new uploads!
IMO its hard to take any video seriously that uses arbitrary city populations rather than metro populations, especially if your video is about the idea of "megalopolis". A lot of cities in the midwest have boundaries drawn in the early 1900s that prevented the main urban area from officially annexing other urban and suburban areas. Minneapolis city for instance has a population of just 420,000, lower than the population in the 1950s which peaked over 500,000, which would give a false impression about the city's size and growth, which is nearly 4,000,000 in the continuous metro area and growing around 10% per decade
Exactly, Detroit and Toronto are going to define differently when the metropolitan is included. It was really only downtown that declined in Detroit. And Toronto has exploded in population, and it’s metropolitan shows the same trend. I really never seen Metropolitans like Chicago,Detroit,and Toronto. Very thankful to live close to benefit.
Southern California from Santa Barbara to LA to San Bernandino to San Diego to even Tijuana is almost all continuous city and should be considered a Megalopolis.
One thing about the increase of the population of Indianapolis and Louisville from 1950 is that both cities merged their city and county governments in 1970 and 2003, respectively. This gave both cities a significant population boost.
The Chicago to Milwaukee portion seems to be the most complete part of the megalopolis. Just looks like they need a little more housing development to fill in the WI section.
One thing that helped Indianapolis is Unigov, the incorporation of Marion County into the city of Indianapolis In 1970. Otherwise if it still had the 1900 boundaries it might show a loss in population. But it's downtown is very nice and underrated. Another city you might have discussed is Youngstown Ohio pretty close to Pittsburgh. Which of course rivals Detroit for population loss and being an epitome rust belt city.
Indianapolis is a great example of what I have mentioned, which is that Louisville, like Indianapolis, didn't seem to have the loss of people like other cities because they annexed the majority of the county. When you look at every census you see the rise and fall but when you're looking at the populations every 50 and 70 years, then you won't.
Would have been interesting if that state didn’t bump the automatic Unigov way up to avoid Fort Wayne doing it. Would almost double the population of Fort Wayne, as it stands today.
@@JohnDoeDoeJohn69 They did it for two reasons. The Indiana constitution strictly prohibits state law from giving preferential treatment to specific places. However, they got around it by having all those preferential laws apply to "Tier 1 cities" and between the Indianapolis area and eastern Allen County lawmakers, they make sure that Indianapolis stays the only Tier 1 city in the state. The Indianapolis ones so they can continue their exclusive preferential treatment by the state and the east Allen County ones because they adamantly do not want to be a part of Fort Wayne.
I am from the Midwest and I was surprised to see almost all of Indiana in this region. I live in a small town between South Bend and Fort Wayne. I am also three hours from all the big cities. I would consider Milwaukee and Chicago and northwest Indiana as one region because highway 94 is very busy in this region. Great video.
Pittsburgh skyline doesn’t have a PATCH on Chicago babe! I’m mad. Also, important to note that despite all of the city’s issues, Chicago metro area has nearly doubled since 1950.
I live in west Michigan about an hour from the lake (within the defined megalopolis boundary). Currently 33 and the older I get, the more I appreciate the mitten. At least a blizzard or lake effect snow even in the greatest amount won't wipe out everything I own in a natural disaster.
I’m surprised you didn’t cover Ann Arbor, it’s a booming city with a lot of amenities. Detroit is also beautiful with rich history and is experiencing a renaissance
Hard to justify with declining populations. Tons of roads are falling into disrepair because nobody can justify the upkeep when the population density it was intended for is gone. Better to use for growing regions such as Cascadia, Southeast, Northeast, etc.
@@dannyornelas9914 in Canada m Toronto is growing so fast (possibly the fastest growing region on the continent) that it’s set to actually dethrone new York when it comes to regional rail and such in the next few years
@@jamescoulson7729 Yeah but that's just one city in its own region. The American side is losing population and our sun belt would give you a run for your Canadian dollars with growth in Texas. Toronto seems awesome though I hope I can visit one day.
Between Chicago and Indy would help for sure. We're adding on to the already extensive spiderweb of Interstates through/around Indianapolis, but for what? More auto commuter traffic? Ugh.
@@dannyornelas9914 New York gained 200k residents in 2021 tho not really sure where this decline of population you’re seeing I live in the northeast megalopolis and people are plentiful
What’s crazy is that Mississauga (west of Toronto) is bigger than Detroit, and Vaughan (north of Toronto) is bigger than Columbus. I always thought they were such big cities
For those unaware, Mississauga is about the 6th largest city in Canada with a population approaching 1 million, all within its city limits, an area of 292.4 square kilometers (or 112.9 square miles)
Throwing in all these facts about the up and down of the central cities in the region but excluding the growth of the suburban populations surrounding those center cities, which in fact dominate in size, wealth, employment, and purchasing power, as well as not mentioning the growth the metropolitan popuIations I find stunningly ignorant, especially considering this video is supposedly about a region. This video IMHO lacks a holistic approach.
I’d argue Toronto is the biggest city in the region but it all depends on technicalities, but an interesting thing about Toronto and all of southern Ontario is that it’s expecting massive population growth over the rest of the century, so it’s possible it could be the largest city and region in North America by population. Reaching probably 25-45 million inhabitants with Toronto making up 20-35 million people
@@--julian_ Canada is really the only country in North America that’s expecting massive population growth expecting to grow by 2.6 times by 2100, while both the USA and Mexico aren’t expected to grow that much since there birth rates are down and have relatively low immigration rates compared to Canada. And so considering Toronto is a city with a population of 10 million (by American standards) with national average population growth it will be a city of 26 million and considering most immigrants head to the major cities many believe Toronto will actually be the first city in North America to reach 30 million
@@ognesson8975 Atlanta needs to expand MARTA before it can grow a lot bigger than it is. Texas has to seriously upgrade its power grid or connect back up with one of the national grids before DFW can get to 20-30 million plus.
Nice video and I love your content! I think annexation has to be taken into account here as well. Cities like Indy and Louisville would likely have seen seen declines as well if not for massive annexation of their counties. On the other hand you have Pittsburgh with a relatively small area within a county with a huge population.
The Detroit you described is the city of 20 or 30 years ago. When was the last time you were here, if ever? Come and take a look. You won't see a dying city, I assure you.
Great video, although I'm surprised you didn't mention that the population figures for Louisville are skewed by the merger with Jefferson County in 2003. Any population figures from before then aren't really comparable to the 2010 and 2020 census (ditto for Indianapolis and Marion County before and after 1970).
This is exactly what I said. Glad to see another person who noticed that. Every major US city lost people in the past due to people moving out of the cities and to the suburbs. The causes for all the different times in the past that cities lost population are usually the same in all these places. They are, white flight due to integration, high crime rate in town and job loss caused by manufacturers moving overseas and to cheaper worker wage markets.
@@cityskylines11 I'm assuming this young man doesn't realize the reason for these cities' large population increases in the last 25 years was due to annexation. Same thing happened with Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio. While the population in the city of Pittsburgh has declined by over 300K people since 1950, Allegheny County has well over one million people, so the people didn't flee the area, they just moved to the suburbs.
Erie, PA is another important historically industrial city, which has faced significant decline, as other rust belt cities have. But, it is actively working on reinventing and reinvesting in itself after many years of lack of vision. So that’s another significant place that you left out.
Some west Michigan lakeshore cities are growing so quickly that they are almost becoming suburbs of Grand Rapids. There are still a few rural miles between but the gap is closing quickly.
I'm very bullish on the Great Lakes region in the long term. Climate change will start to push people away from the sun belt areas that they moved to back to the Great lakes region which because of their inland status but having the largest fresh water lakes in the world are much better suited to handle the effects of climate change.
There's around 50,000 - 60,000 semi trucks per day that travel I-94 corridor through Michigan. When I was a kid there were many rural areas but now it's pretty well built up - very few exits that haven't had some kind of development along the freeway. It's solid from K-Zoo over to Milwaukee and from Ann Arbor to Windsor. Eventually it'll be solid all the way across southern Michigan.
I love the fictional megalopolis from William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk work, _Neuromancer._ It's the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis (BAMA), informally known as The Sprawl. Contains every major city or former city between the two named at its termini. Real-life ones are pretty sweet, too!
Love this region, I feel like I'm in the middle of everything. There're so many places within a day's drive from Indianapolis that I never get bored traveling, whether in a semi-truck or my personal vehicle.
Mega region is definitely more accurate than Megalopolis, although Chicago is forming its own, and Detroit will soon be in the Toronto megalopolis. But the ability to remain close to family while moving to a different state in the same region, combined with world class education makes the Midwest mega region surprisingly dynamic. One or two cities don't dominate, Chicago and Toronto are definitely the biggest players, but the region has a ton of large and economically diverse cities which allow for regional growth.
Decent video. It did change my mind on some things. I won't be referring to it as the Great Lakes Megalopolis anymore, but instead as the Great Lakes Mega Region. I also agree that it is FAR from being a true Megalopolis and I think that second, very conservative version with basically just Chicago to Toronto is the closest correct one. Any other iteration has way too much rural spacing. My disagreement thoughts: Indianapolis and Louisville are much too far from a Great Lake to be considered part of the Great Lakes Megaregion. No reason to add those two, especially if Minneapolis didn't make it, with Minneapolis being a similar distance from a Great Lake but being much larger and more influential than those two. Also technically Indianapolis is East of Chicago, not West as mentioned in the video. Also saying Pittsburgh has a good skyline is silly. Opinions are opinions but that's just silly. The Pittsburgh skyline is visually unbalanced, and they have maybe 6 recognizable buildings with only 3 of those actually being good. And the bridges can be nice from some angles but aren't good enough in most angles. Chicago doesn't have a bad angle on its skyline, it's oddly well balanced viewed from almost any angle, and has many world renowned buildings. I personally don't think Chicago has the best skyline in the world, but it beats Pittsburgh by almost every metric, unless "small, unbalanced, architecturally weak, and not very well known" are the features you admire in a skyline.
While I agree the Chicago skyline is great, I am a Pittsburgh skyline defender. I think how well known a particular building may be is irrelevant to the aesthetics of a skyline. And I concede that it is small. But two things going for it are it’s mix of buildings from the 1890s to the 1980s. No Asian mega skyline can say that. It has some of the earliest steel skyscrapers in the world. Second, most will see the skyline from Mt. Washington which uniquely looks down on the skyline and is pretty close. Because it is so small, it can be taken in at one view without turning the head and fits well in a selfie. Most other skylines are harder to view from the correct distance. Either one is too close and canon see it all or too far away and details are lost. And the fact that Pittsburgh is surrounded by tunnels and bridges means the skyline surprises you as you exit a tunnel rather than being seen from 20 miles away.
I feel like I may be a little biased since I grew up here, but the Rockford, IL region is severely underrated in importance in the Great Lakes region. In the 50's the city was the next big thing. Brand new theaters, a luxury hotel skyscraper, and a vibrant culture reminiscent of nearby Chicago. But most importantly, it was an industry powerhouse. Tooling, Hardware, and ammunition being the most important, and why we were a primary target for the Soviet nuclear arsenal. But even after the rustbelt catastrophe, Rockford flies under the radar as a massive industry center. A huge manufacturing hub for tooling and hardware, automotive, and probably most important, an aerospace industry that rivals places like Dayton and Wichita. Despite the wards full of empty lots and abandoned factories, it's incredible how much of a production output Rockford still has. It's just severely overlooked due to its smaller size, proximity to the Chicagoland area (some argue we're a part of the Chicago area), and its typical rustbelt decay.
The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) in Ontario is the most populous and fastest growing metropolitan area in the Great Lakes Region. The main reason is the large number of immigrants who move there every year which is way beyond any American metropolitan area.
I think it's important to point out that Columbus & Indianapolis haven't necessarily benefited from their more southern locations, rather being state capitals they have had different local economic factors that have maintained a different sort of stability. Each have an administrative infrastructure and large universities and a large services based economy associated with it and also didn't rely as heavily to my understanding on the heavy industry that was the backbone of cities like Detroit & Cleveland.
Grand Rapids lake effect snow has actually been pretty tame for a while now. Some years it’ll be over 50 in December, other years there will be a blizzard that shuts the schools down for 2 weeks like in 2019…
Good video! I personally draw the boundary a bit tighter, not because of development but due to culture. It's a stretch to include Pittsburgh in the Great Lakes area because the western Pa mountains has its own culture that is drastically different than Buffalo. But that's just my opinion. Keep up the good work!
A lot of the problem with comparing populations of the cities is that it doesn't take into effect the rise of suburbs in the latter half of the 20th century. For instance, the Chicago MSA has grown from 5.5 million in 1950 to 9.6 million in 2020. Even a city like Cleveland has seen its MSA grow in that timeframe, while the city proper lost population. Metro Detroit has added over a million people in the past 70 years.
I respect the self-restraint displayed by not forcing a Gary Indiana joke. I go into almost all of these videos expecting Gary to get caught in the cross-fire. well done
That's a really good point. I didn't think about that but I did wonder why Rochester, NY and central Illinois were not included. Your idea is much more of a surprise though. They are very close
@@DJ_BROBOT The St Lawrence is at least connected to the great lakes. The video defines Madison, Rockford IL, Indianapolis, LOUISVILLE KY, and Pittsburg as part of the mega region, and you want to exclude major cities on the St Lawrence? How is Montreal not part of this mega region, and freaking Louisville is?
I live on lake superior, ashland wi and we get lake effect snow but just 30 miles east is the "snow belt" and they get hammered all winter! Another great video!
Grand Rapids is my city. Beautiful city, a growing city, beer city USA. I life west of Walker and north of George town. Where the grand river makes a bend on the left side of the map, the river bends from going north to directly west. I live in Allendale charter township. My house is right on the river.
A nice part of living here is that the cities are spaced out so well, its not like the country where cities are hours apart, but its also unlike the northeast which is city after city
I think you should always go with the metro or urban area population, it seems more accurate and shows all the sphere of influence of the inner city, ou don’t see things like atlanta or miami at like 450k city population
I’d love to see a Triopolis for the PNW cities of Vancouver BC, Seattle WA, and Portland OR. Gates has been pushing for high speed rail infrastructure for a couple years now. They (mostly) love each other and connect very easily socially and culturally. I would love to hear what u have to say. Plz 🙏
Lake effect precipitation, rain or snow, is one of the reasons why the Great Lakes Region is so fertile and agriculturally productive. That agricultural positive, not only feeds our area, but the world! I don't like your inference that this weather phenomenon is a negative.
I think that in 20 years you are going to start seeing growth again in most places. Main things being we have LOTS of water, and housing is pretty affordable. All the people that left for the South and California are realizing that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. They are running out of water, becoming even hotter from climate change, and places like Florida will be underwater in 50 years.
Already Toronto is probably the fastest growing region on the continent, and I’ve always found it weird how that same success hasn’t happened in the usa
With the Southwest drying out you will be seeing a lot more people moving closer to all that fresh water. It actually is already starting. There is going to be a rejuvenation in the places along the shores of these lakes. Abundant fresh water is life and people are coming. Hope yer ready.
Nah it hasn’t started yet. The Midwest hasn’t even finished bottoming out yet. It will continue to decline for the next 50 years. The Southwest continues to boom, and will continue to do so for probably another 50 years.
As someone who lives in a suburb of Columbus, Columbus imo is super underrated. While Columbus isn't the most flashy, it has some notable places. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, which is outside the outerbelt, has a massive area of land and a lot of animals (some that are endangered) that are well cared for. Next to the zoo, there is a big waterpark called Zoombezi Bay, which is probably the most popular waterpark in Central Ohio. There's also COSI, which is next to the Scioto River, which runs through downtown. COSI is a big and interactive science learning center designed for kids to look and sometimes even play with. There's also a TON of metro parks around the city, a few colleges (most notably Ohio State, which even has its own agricultural section randomly in the middle of all the development), and a few big mall centers, such as Easton and Polaris. Oh, and then there's the Ohio State Fair, which takes place on the fairgrounds adjacent to the old Columbus Crew Stadium (a soccer stadium). The Ohio State Fair is arguably one of the biggest fairs in the entire midwest, with the few roller coasters and many other different amusement park rides, as well as different centers for different things, like a cow being sculpted out of cheese for example. Finally, there are the two reservoirs on the outskirts, Hoover and Alum Creek Lake. Both offer good areas for boating, canoeing, etc., and Alum Creek even has its own beach. While Columbus is definitely more of a commercial city as opposed to an industrial city (hence why Columbus is thriving rn), there is still a lot of stuff to do here. Plus, there's a new Intel (the company Intel) plant that is under construction right now on the outskirts of the city, so we still will have some source of industry here as well.
I get why you didn’t discuss the Ontario cities, but Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and London are quite different and worth mentioning, since Canadian cities typically punch above their weight. Hamilton is a true rust belt city that is slowly being amalgamated into the GTA- it was destined to be a lot larger than it currently is; Kitchener-Waterloo is a rapidly growing tech hub with a large German history influencing it’s built form- and is the smallest city in NA to have LRT; London… well I’m not personally sure as I’m from Hamilton. But it’s got a lot going on and is a regional centre, largest in southern Ontario outside the Golden Horseshoe (Toronto-Ham-Kw-Niagara)
I had no idea Indianapolis is that big. It really is the definition of a Midwest city - a major population centre, capital of its state, home to almost 1mil, and no one thinks about it outside of recognition for the Indianapolis 500.
Indianapolis is underrated, but it seems comparatively huge because he used city population instead of metro population, which is a completely arbitrary number
Fascinating video! I have been really digging into this topic as of late, and have been enjoying learning about the Great Lakes mega region. I am very surprised Minnesota is not in this definition of ‘Great Lakes mega region’ considering that it is a Great Lake state. I’d personally extend it to make it more inclusive
Great video! I visited Cleveland for the first time this summer and I was impressed. Now granted, I stayed in the bougie section of town right in the Key Tower (which is one of the tallest buildings in the Midwest) and I don't know what the economic realities are of the region but I thought there was plenty to do and that the city had "good bones". It definitely seems on the upswing and with real estate prices still very competitive, I wouldn't count them out!
Thanks for highlighting my corner of the world!! I mean, like obviously this wasn’t made ✨for me✨ lol, but it’s always fun to see people talk about Detroit!
Detroit is hanging on the precipice of population growth right now actually (gasp!). It's mainly in the neighborhoods surrounding downtown, but there are other neighborhoods beginning to see improvement. I wouldn't be very surprised if the 2030 census showed growth.
The only reason why it hasn't shown growth is because the census undercounted again and the city is not building enough housing/ apartments to meet demand. All the nice apartments in Detroit are either on a wait list or overpriced.
@@jrt2792 When I say affordable I mean by housing costs. Also here in California we also have high taxes but that's only a problem if you are more affluent.
Yeap Chicago would most definitely be the most interesting if your coming from cali,but other areas would be good for something smaller and you can invest in
Just a note on the population growth of Indianapolis and Toronto since 1950: both cities annexed most of their suburbs - so their growth is not necessarily organic.
Cleveland's nickname (at least in Michigan) is "Cleveland -- The mistake on the lake". . It's the only city I know of where a nearby river was so polluted that it caught on fire.
Rochester, NY is the Great lakes way you add Louisville but not Rochester Downtown Rochester is only 7 miles from Lake Ontario but Downtown Louisville is 250 miles from a great lake Why Louisville and Not Rochester
Being from Rochester, NY I felt that snub but I get it. Also the Great Lakes is gonna be the place to be in 50 years because we got that unlimited water glitch and preexisting infrastructure. Places like Arizona will be a wasteland by then.
If you map traditional tech and manufacturing by looking where the auto industry, Eastman Kodak and Motorola were, then this video would be short and simple.
I like your videos, but excluding Rochester from a conversation about the Great Lakes Megaregion/Megalopolis but including Louisville Kentucky is kinda silly and I just can't take it seriously lol. Rochester is the only major American city on Lake Ontario and is the traditional eastern end of every conventional Great Lakes Megalopolis discussion I've ever seen. There are rural areas between Rochester and Buffalo but they are connected by a good sized microregion (Batavia) and share sports teams and other similarities. They are definitely more connected than some of the other cities on this list. Including Louisville and Indianapolis in a Great Lakes Megaregion but excluding a metro region of 1 million people that literally sits ON A GREAT LAKE is just...idk haha.
The idea megaopolis doesn't make much sense. It's just regional areas. There are hours of rural land between most the cities. You might as well have included st. Louis, Kansas city, Sioux falls etc. It would've been better if you added critera to how long of drive through rural areas and added geographic measurements like watersheds. Sorry for sounding harsh, it's just you really hated on Chicago's skyline.
I checked Google and it 100% is a megalopolis just as much and the northeast or Florida it's not just a mega region so idk why people keep saying its not a megalopolis
Cleveland is as good of an example of lake effect snow as Buffalo. South Buffalo gets tons of snow compared to the rest of the city. In Cleveland, it’s west side versus east side. The same storm can dump 10x as much snow in the persistent snow belts as on the other areas.
Sometimes, lake effect snow can exist WAY downwind of the Great Lakes. Occasionally as far south as Nashville, we would see lake effect snow. It's quite uncommon, but there have been nights where we would get very light snow in a narrow band that started over the southern half of Lake Michigan. It's remarkable. Good video!
Nice video on an underrated region. I do think that your growth statistics were somewhat unrepresentative of actual population though. Using cities proper instead of metro areas doesn’t tell the whole story, especially in a place like Detroit (Michigan’s population has hardly changed, indicating movement to suburbs immediately surrounding Detroit, not complete urban abandonment as you insinuated). I’d like to see more videos like this one with a focus on metro areas!
I lived in the Cleveland and then Youngstown areas in the 70s. Moving south to NC for the weather and better opportunities. Lake effect snow was a real downer all winter long. I'm also very familiar with Pittsburgh, having lived near there in Wheeling WV and visiting frequently more recently. PS: I've considered only the cities near the lakes, the Great Lakes region, the remainder of your area is just the "midwest" an odd name considering its not really the middle of the country. You can also separate out the Ohio River valley, with just a few large cities, but a pretty constant stream of small towns as you drive along the river, EG Pittsburgh, East Liverpool, Stubenville, Wheeling, Moundsville, Marietta, Parkersburg, Huntington, on to Cinci, and beyond. Population has dropped in some given the decline in industry there but is still very settled.
At 12:26 there’s actually a LOT to the story of the canal in Chicago. My latest video covers it and how it was one of the greatest waterway engineering projects, while at the same time being one of the worst. Thank you for shedding light on these underrated cities! Really interesting video. 🔥
I visited Buffalo once and it has actually been growing a lot since 2010 and is on the rise. A 70 year period can have a lot of ups and downs. But after my visit it is safe to say Buffalo is on the rise.
Lead pipes CAN be fine because they naturally build up a protective film on the inside if you don't strip it off by using the wrong additives and then fake the water quality tests.
i do agree that the smaller cities should have been skipped but hamiilton has sucka rich rust belt city full of mafia and has the most waterfalls on earth so you should have talked about it due to the population being around 800K
I personally don't really feel areas south quite fit into the same mold as the cities along the I-94 and I-90 corridors. However, if I were to include Indy, Louisville, Cinci, and Columbus I would include Minneapolis and Duluth. I only mention Duluth not because it's a particularly large city, but because of it's huge importance in Great Lakes shipping... which in one way or another ties much of this region together.
Many regions defined as a megalopolis in the US are really just two or three different areas pretty close together. For example, Florida is really Just Orlando/Tampa/Fort Myers and the East Coast, separated by Ocala National Forest. The Southeast megalopolis is separated by Banks and Franklin County in Georgia, and The Great Lakes Megaregion is separated by the Northwest Corner of Ohio and The areas just north of I-70
Detroit is and always will be a great city and is improving. The metro Detroit area has always had a pretty stable population and is growing now. Most of the Detroit area has little crime and no blight. This video would be better if you talked about the metropolitan areas as a whole, city limits are very misleading. Many of these cities haven't been able to expand their borders for a long time like other cities. For example the metro Detroit area has a larger population then the Indianapolis and Columbus areas combined. And if Detroit's city limits covered the same square mileage as those 2 cities, it would still have well over a million people.
Cleveland is a bit deceptive in population though. According to what I can find greater Cleveland is more like 2 million when you throw in the surrounding suburbs, the difference between Cleveland and Columbus is all the suburbs seem to be part of Columbus proper. If you throw in Akron it’s the Cleveland-Akron metro area is easily the most populous in Ohio.
Honestly, the only megalopolis that feels like a megalopolis is the northeast one. As someone who's been to 49 states. The other so-called megalopolises aren't big enough, connected enough or filled in enough.
I am in agreement, but I think the reason for me is different. I find the more suburban or less dense ones really don’t seem as big to me. The northeast is old, and has a lot of non suburban development, to the point where it just feels bigger than everything else
Especially the last two
Except Florida they're just grown together
I feel like the cascade Megapolis is the only other real one yes there’s a gap between Olympia and tacoma but that’s a military base and Native American reservation
Northeast 12/48 has less than 25% of the USA population, but 8/32 NFL teams.
3/4 NFC East, 3/4 AFC East, 2/4 AFC North.
Most Dutch, English, French, and Germans live within a commuting distance of the English Channel or the Rhine River.
Northeast doesn't even have a ferry schedule besides Staten Island.
The main idea is Brookings "Why Midsize Metros Deserve our Attention" answers your misconceptions.
75% reside in a metropolitan statistical area since the micro cutoff grew to 100000.
The fact is both EU & USA had to commute well past a regular metro area into a mega.
One thing to consider about Michigan: both Detroit and Grand Rapids have *local* income taxes if you live and work in them. If you live in a suburb and only drive in to either city for work, the income tax is cut in half. This incentivises people to move out of the city-proper but stay in the metro area, so the decline of those cities may be a little exaggerated.
The city of Pontiac and Flint have the same thing. Not only can it give workers and incentive to live outside the city limits, but it can also give new businesses a reason to set up just outside the city as well; they can attract workers with no city taxes, boast that they are beings jobs to the area, but not actually doing much to help the city.
That is very strange, and definitely something that would make people not want to live and work there
Not to mention white flight. The Detroit metropolitan region still has a population of around four million. Michigan's population has remained relatively steady at around 10 million for several decades.
Agreed, that's why looking at metro population is much more indicative of actual growth/decline than city population.
And that Michigan stupidity has been only one of the best reasons for the scandalous set of self-imposed urban destructions in the USA.
If a river in your city hasn't caught on fire, you can't compete with Cleveland.
Chicagoan here we can compete Lake and the river on fire
@@snoofyair4744 yeah in a worst rust belt city competition Chicago and Cleveland would be fighting for 2nd place. Obviously Detroit is in 1st.
Your not wrong...
Average day in Ohio
@@AeroGuy07 yeah Detroit is getting better but still
I wonder why you didn't mention Toledo. It's on lake Erie and it's bigger than other cities that were mentioned. We exist!!
It’s starting to merge in with with the Detroit area, especially since the Ann Arbor area of the metro is doing better than the Detroit side. It’s a bit similar to the Cincinnati/Dayton situation. Nothing against Toledo personally or anything.
I live in the South, far away from Toledo, but I too was definitely noticing y'all got skipped. I passed through northwest Ohio on a trip this summer; lots of pretty land up there. Spent the night in Lima; nice folks there. Gotta recognize the 419. Home of the 2022 MAC football champion Toledo Rockets, too.
Smaller than Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Minneapolis.
@@janvie bigger than Grand Rapids ans South Bend
lol i think u guys get tossed in with detroit!
Minneapolis is outside your boundaries, but it has been one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest. And the metro never saw declines like the other more rust belt cities.
Was there any decline in Minneapolis with the mills moving away from downtown? Or did they relocate locally to keep people and jobs in the area?
I'm more familiar with Duluth where my daughter had a job for a year, which is of course quite the rust belt city. I love it there with its terrain and old architecture but it's had quite a population loss. She's now looking to move to Minneapolis.
@@timmmahhhh there was, but not nearly as drastic as other rust belt cities. Peak of 521k, bottomed out to 370k, now around 425k. They have one of the highest number of fortune 500 companies per capita.
@@Micg51 thanks.
As a Minneapolis resident, I can agree with this.
You can't mention Minneapolis though without mentioning St Paul. They are called the twin cities after all. I'm just going off of memory here so I may be incorrect but, isn't the St Paul side more of the run down, sketchy, rusty side? I believe it was the city that took the biggest hit to its population, just like many rust belt cities. The twin cities are so close that you could make an argument that they are almost like one city. I think of it like Minneapolis is the part of town that didn't take as much of a hit and St Paul is the part that did. All of the rust belt cities had parts of town that were affected more or less than others.
I live in even the most conservative definition. People don’t really notice the metro Detroit area and/or they have some major misconceptions.
Detroit, Toledo, Ann Arbor, Windsor and Flint all blend together with no real disconnect.
It's not until between Birch Run and Bridgeport that there's any significant gap between that and the distinct Saginaw/Midland/Bay City metro region. 8 miles is all that really disconnects Toledo from Sanford, MI (Where any further NW and you'd see rural areas again) as a continuous metropolitan region for nearly 200 miles.
As long as the Tyrone’s aren’t near me, I’m happy
If you're going to break down each city make sure to do it by metropolitan area, in this video it's done by municipal boundaries and skews how these cities have changed over time. A lot of these cities haven't actually declined in population, but have been hollowed out by their suburbs, which are different municipalities and do not get included. Or it in the case of Toronto, it leaves out a significant portion of population and growth.
Ontario provincial government merely redefined the boundaries of Greater Toronto. Basically a metropolitan wide annexation and hence a big increase in the "city population." No different than the past redefinition of Kitchner-Waterloo.
I agree. That's why whenever I compare cities or talk about their size, I always mention the city limits along with the metropolitan area and the city's size in square miles. It also helps to lnow if there are other cities of similar size that help make up the metro pop. It's helpful also to know the MSA and CBSA.
Came here to say the same thing.
You would think Columbus dominates Ohio based on this presentation when it is 3rd. Cleveland is the largest metro area but Cincinnati can be argued to be bigger if you count its KY area or Dayton.
Either way. Cleveland and Cincinnati are both notable cities on the world stage just one tier below NY, LA, or DC. Similar to Manchester or Nice.
Columbus is regionally important but few folks outside the Midwest would find a reason to go there. I would place it similar to Tours or Cardiff.
Indianapolis is a good example of this one. Our City and County merged in 1970, expanding the total land area of the "City" to 403 square miles.
Agree, for example the metro regions of Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh are all very similar in size but the cities have very different sizes. Columbus and Indianapolis have annexed many of their former suburbs and thus appear to have growth while in the others the suburbs have grown considerably at the expense of the core whose boundaries have not changed.
Lake Effect is no joke. Some people think it's simply a weaker winter storm but all i usually say to them is you just have to experience it to really notice the different compared to a regular snowstorm
lake effect snow... nothing like going to bed with no snow on the ground and waking up to 2ft or more on the ground.
Buffalo got hit with 6 feet of snow recently. Meanwhile it's in the 50's and humid in NYC.
Lake effect, where we measure snow in feet not inches. Love it when the weather people in some areas hype less than a foot of snow. I just laugh. It is sad now though that they hype the weather like they do the news. Les than half a foot and they are screaming in to the tv, STAY AT HOME, STAY OFF THE ROADS. GONNA GET UP TO 6 INCHES! DANGEROUS CONDITIONS!
Worst storm we got was in 2014. We only got two feet in Amherst but Orchard Park got 12 and collapsed a bunch of peoples' houses.
But that's pretty uncommon. Most winters were only moderately snowy.
@@wadehm63 That is mostly because the areas in question don't know how to deal with it.
Props to my guy for saying Louisville right. Also Cincinnati WAS declining in population but has recently started to gain population within the city itself
Yes, people never acknowledge that. Cincinnati is in fact growing again, both within the city limits and the entire metro area
Fun fact, there is a small town by Canton, Ohio named the same as Louisville but for some odd reason, is pronounced Loo-is-ville.
i love Michigan lived all over the state from Detroit, grand blank, Clio, ypsilanti,st helen, and long lake hale,and now battle creek i absolutely am grateful to be from here regardless of what issues michigan has, love the video
While many of these cities have gone through some type of decline in the past half-century, most of them still have some very nice suburban areas outside the city. Honestly, Chicago has some of the most beautiful suburbs in the country, very walkable often as well. The Midwest may also be a hotspot for climate refugees in the future decades, which could be an interesting topic to research.
@@popcornone2702 Totally agree.
Detroit has a lot of very nice suburbs as well.
I’ve never felt so optimistic about Michigan.
As someone who is from Oak park and grew up in Aurora and St Charles. I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks for mentioning Canada! I’m from the other end of Canada but that Erie peninsula is home to almost half of all Canadians, so it’s very important to us!
Toronto and Buffalo are in one metro-area.?
@@295g295 kinda. So there’s this thing in southern Ontario called the Golden Horseshoe, which goes from Ajax to Niagara Falls, and it’s pretty much a continuous urban area, with a population of about 7-9 million
@@295g295 no.
@@295g295 Not quite. The Lake Ontario lakeshore is continuously urbanized from Oshawa to Hamilton but then there's not much until St Catherines. There's two 20-30km rural gaps between Toronto and Buffalo.
-Raised in Buffalo, Live in Toronto
I think metro Toronto Ontario watches Buffalo tv stations.
Hey, it looks like most of your comments are either people correcting you or adding info. Nothing wrong with that, but since you're a smaller channel and don't hear it as much as the big youtubers, I just wanted to say I really love your videos and the topics they cover. The vid quality has gotten a lot more solid over time, and I seriously look forward to new uploads!
You don’t know how much I genuinely appreciate comments like this, makes me so happy to hear!
I also hope that Detroit and Toledo can turn things around. Just generally the whole great lakes region really.
IMO its hard to take any video seriously that uses arbitrary city populations rather than metro populations, especially if your video is about the idea of "megalopolis". A lot of cities in the midwest have boundaries drawn in the early 1900s that prevented the main urban area from officially annexing other urban and suburban areas. Minneapolis city for instance has a population of just 420,000, lower than the population in the 1950s which peaked over 500,000, which would give a false impression about the city's size and growth, which is nearly 4,000,000 in the continuous metro area and growing around 10% per decade
Thank you. City population means almost nothing now days
Exactly, Detroit and Toronto are going to define differently when the metropolitan is included. It was really only downtown that declined in Detroit. And Toronto has exploded in population, and it’s metropolitan shows the same trend. I really never seen Metropolitans like Chicago,Detroit,and Toronto. Very thankful to live close to benefit.
@@captainca1445Metro Detroit has 4.3 Million people
Yeah for real. Need to account for white flight.
Southern California from Santa Barbara to LA to San Bernandino to San Diego to even Tijuana is almost all continuous city and should be considered a Megalopolis.
I was thinking the same thing…surely that deserved a mention
Actually, the California megalopolis is called San-San: San Francisco to San Diego. 30 million people.
One thing about the increase of the population of Indianapolis and Louisville from 1950 is that both cities merged their city and county governments in 1970 and 2003, respectively. This gave both cities a significant population boost.
The Chicago to Milwaukee portion seems to be the most complete part of the megalopolis. Just looks like they need a little more housing development to fill in the WI section.
True and I'd also say Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara (US&Canada), Buffalo. If you drive that route it is basically urban the entire drive.
True and I'd also say Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara (US&Canada), Buffalo. If you drive that route it is basically urban the entire drive.
One thing that helped Indianapolis is Unigov, the incorporation of Marion County into the city of Indianapolis In 1970. Otherwise if it still had the 1900 boundaries it might show a loss in population. But it's downtown is very nice and underrated.
Another city you might have discussed is Youngstown Ohio pretty close to Pittsburgh. Which of course rivals Detroit for population loss and being an epitome rust belt city.
Indianapolis is a great example of what I have mentioned, which is that Louisville, like Indianapolis, didn't seem to have the loss of people like other cities because they annexed the majority of the county. When you look at every census you see the rise and fall but when you're looking at the populations every 50 and 70 years, then you won't.
Would have been interesting if that state didn’t bump the automatic Unigov way up to avoid Fort Wayne doing it. Would almost double the population of Fort Wayne, as it stands today.
@@JohnDoeDoeJohn69 They did it for two reasons. The Indiana constitution strictly prohibits state law from giving preferential treatment to specific places. However, they got around it by having all those preferential laws apply to "Tier 1 cities" and between the Indianapolis area and eastern Allen County lawmakers, they make sure that Indianapolis stays the only Tier 1 city in the state. The Indianapolis ones so they can continue their exclusive preferential treatment by the state and the east Allen County ones because they adamantly do not want to be a part of Fort Wayne.
I am from the Midwest and I was surprised to see almost all of Indiana in this region. I live in a small town between South Bend and Fort Wayne. I am also three hours from all the big cities. I would consider Milwaukee and Chicago and northwest Indiana as one region because highway 94 is very busy in this region. Great video.
I can't wait to move back to the Great Lakes region. I miss home so much.
If access to freshwater is going to be concern in the future, the areas around the Great Lakes may be a place to for industry and people.
Pittsburgh skyline doesn’t have a PATCH on Chicago babe! I’m mad. Also, important to note that despite all of the city’s issues, Chicago metro area has nearly doubled since 1950.
Chicago skyline is better than Pittsburgh I agree with that to.
Chicago, Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, & Hammond (NW Indiana) make up a megalopolis of 12 million people.
I live in west Michigan about an hour from the lake (within the defined megalopolis boundary). Currently 33 and the older I get, the more I appreciate the mitten. At least a blizzard or lake effect snow even in the greatest amount won't wipe out everything I own in a natural disaster.
Blizzards have been happening a lot less frequently. Still cold and cloudy though.
I’m surprised you didn’t cover Ann Arbor, it’s a booming city with a lot of amenities. Detroit is also beautiful with rich history and is experiencing a renaissance
The Northern Suburbs of Detroit, specifically Oakland County, Michigan, is a delightful place.
I'd love to see more of rail and bus transit in the Megaregion as the Northeast Corridor.
Hard to justify with declining populations. Tons of roads are falling into disrepair because nobody can justify the upkeep when the population density it was intended for is gone. Better to use for growing regions such as Cascadia, Southeast, Northeast, etc.
@@dannyornelas9914 in Canada m Toronto is growing so fast (possibly the fastest growing region on the continent) that it’s set to actually dethrone new York when it comes to regional rail and such in the next few years
@@jamescoulson7729 Yeah but that's just one city in its own region. The American side is losing population and our sun belt would give you a run for your Canadian dollars with growth in Texas. Toronto seems awesome though I hope I can visit one day.
Between Chicago and Indy would help for sure. We're adding on to the already extensive spiderweb of Interstates through/around Indianapolis, but for what? More auto commuter traffic? Ugh.
@@dannyornelas9914 New York gained 200k residents in 2021 tho not really sure where this decline of population you’re seeing I live in the northeast megalopolis and people are plentiful
What’s crazy is that Mississauga (west of Toronto) is bigger than Detroit, and Vaughan (north of Toronto) is bigger than Columbus. I always thought they were such big cities
For those unaware, Mississauga is about the 6th largest city in Canada with a population approaching 1 million, all within its city limits, an area of 292.4 square kilometers (or 112.9 square miles)
@@aidankeys8534 Have to visit one day!
Throwing in all these facts about the up and down of the central cities in the region but excluding the growth of the suburban populations surrounding those center cities, which in fact dominate in size, wealth, employment, and purchasing power, as well as not mentioning the growth the metropolitan popuIations I find stunningly ignorant, especially considering this video is supposedly about a region. This video IMHO lacks a holistic approach.
I’d argue Toronto is the biggest city in the region but it all depends on technicalities, but an interesting thing about Toronto and all of southern Ontario is that it’s expecting massive population growth over the rest of the century, so it’s possible it could be the largest city and region in North America by population. Reaching probably 25-45 million inhabitants with Toronto making up 20-35 million people
I doubt it can overcome New York City or Mexico City
@@--julian_ Canada is really the only country in North America that’s expecting massive population growth expecting to grow by 2.6 times by 2100, while both the USA and Mexico aren’t expected to grow that much since there birth rates are down and have relatively low immigration rates compared to Canada. And so considering Toronto is a city with a population of 10 million (by American standards) with national average population growth it will be a city of 26 million and considering most immigrants head to the major cities many believe Toronto will actually be the first city in North America to reach 30 million
@@ognesson8975 Atlanta needs to expand MARTA before it can grow a lot bigger than it is.
Texas has to seriously upgrade its power grid or connect back up with one of the national grids before DFW can get to 20-30 million plus.
Nice video and I love your content!
I think annexation has to be taken into account here as well. Cities like Indy and Louisville would likely have seen seen declines as well if not for massive annexation of their counties. On the other hand you have Pittsburgh with a relatively small area within a county with a huge population.
The Detroit you described is the city of 20 or 30 years ago. When was the last time you were here, if ever? Come and take a look. You won't see a dying city, I assure you.
Great video, although I'm surprised you didn't mention that the population figures for Louisville are skewed by the merger with Jefferson County in 2003. Any population figures from before then aren't really comparable to the 2010 and 2020 census (ditto for Indianapolis and Marion County before and after 1970).
This is exactly what I said. Glad to see another person who noticed that. Every major US city lost people in the past due to people moving out of the cities and to the suburbs. The causes for all the different times in the past that cities lost population are usually the same in all these places. They are, white flight due to integration, high crime rate in town and job loss caused by manufacturers moving overseas and to cheaper worker wage markets.
@@cityskylines11 I'm assuming this young man doesn't realize the reason for these cities' large population increases in the last 25 years was due to annexation. Same thing happened with Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio. While the population in the city of Pittsburgh has declined by over 300K people since 1950, Allegheny County has well over one million people, so the people didn't flee the area, they just moved to the suburbs.
Erie, PA is another important historically industrial city, which has faced significant decline, as other rust belt cities have. But, it is actively working on reinventing and reinvesting in itself after many years of lack of vision. So that’s another significant place that you left out.
Some west Michigan lakeshore cities are growing so quickly that they are almost becoming suburbs of Grand Rapids. There are still a few rural miles between but the gap is closing quickly.
Holland is getting crazy
Kalamazoo area growing too. Holland-Kalamazoo-Grand Rapids are all close together. Even though Kalamazoo
is 45mins from the lakeshore.
I'm very bullish on the Great Lakes region in the long term. Climate change will start to push people away from the sun belt areas that they moved to back to the Great lakes region which because of their inland status but having the largest fresh water lakes in the world are much better suited to handle the effects of climate change.
I think Chicago-Detroit/Windsor-Toronto makes a megalopolis on their own.
There's around 50,000 - 60,000 semi trucks per day that travel I-94 corridor through Michigan. When I was a kid there were many rural areas but now it's pretty well built up - very few exits that haven't had some kind of development along the freeway. It's solid from K-Zoo over to Milwaukee and from Ann Arbor to Windsor. Eventually it'll be solid all the way across southern Michigan.
Agreed I’m from the area. I can definitely see the growth. They have even widen I-94 in Kalamazoo to keep up with traffic and growth.
I love the fictional megalopolis from William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk work, _Neuromancer._ It's the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis (BAMA), informally known as The Sprawl. Contains every major city or former city between the two named at its termini. Real-life ones are pretty sweet, too!
Haven't read that book in a long time. Love books by Gibson.
Love this region, I feel like I'm in the middle of everything. There're so many places within a day's drive from Indianapolis that I never get bored traveling, whether in a semi-truck or my personal vehicle.
Mega region is definitely more accurate than Megalopolis, although Chicago is forming its own, and Detroit will soon be in the Toronto megalopolis.
But the ability to remain close to family while moving to a different state in the same region, combined with world class education makes the Midwest mega region surprisingly dynamic. One or two cities don't dominate, Chicago and Toronto are definitely the biggest players, but the region has a ton of large and economically diverse cities which allow for regional growth.
Babe, wake up. Beaver Geography uploaded a video.
Decent video. It did change my mind on some things. I won't be referring to it as the Great Lakes Megalopolis anymore, but instead as the Great Lakes Mega Region. I also agree that it is FAR from being a true Megalopolis and I think that second, very conservative version with basically just Chicago to Toronto is the closest correct one. Any other iteration has way too much rural spacing.
My disagreement thoughts: Indianapolis and Louisville are much too far from a Great Lake to be considered part of the Great Lakes Megaregion. No reason to add those two, especially if Minneapolis didn't make it, with Minneapolis being a similar distance from a Great Lake but being much larger and more influential than those two. Also technically Indianapolis is East of Chicago, not West as mentioned in the video.
Also saying Pittsburgh has a good skyline is silly. Opinions are opinions but that's just silly. The Pittsburgh skyline is visually unbalanced, and they have maybe 6 recognizable buildings with only 3 of those actually being good. And the bridges can be nice from some angles but aren't good enough in most angles. Chicago doesn't have a bad angle on its skyline, it's oddly well balanced viewed from almost any angle, and has many world renowned buildings. I personally don't think Chicago has the best skyline in the world, but it beats Pittsburgh by almost every metric, unless "small, unbalanced, architecturally weak, and not very well known" are the features you admire in a skyline.
While I agree the Chicago skyline is great, I am a Pittsburgh skyline defender. I think how well known a particular building may be is irrelevant to the aesthetics of a skyline. And I concede that it is small. But two things going for it are it’s mix of buildings from the 1890s to the 1980s. No Asian mega skyline can say that. It has some of the earliest steel skyscrapers in the world.
Second, most will see the skyline from Mt. Washington which uniquely looks down on the skyline and is pretty close. Because it is so small, it can be taken in at one view without turning the head and fits well in a selfie. Most other skylines are harder to view from the correct distance. Either one is too close and canon see it all or too far away and details are lost.
And the fact that Pittsburgh is surrounded by tunnels and bridges means the skyline surprises you as you exit a tunnel rather than being seen from 20 miles away.
I feel like I may be a little biased since I grew up here, but the Rockford, IL region is severely underrated in importance in the Great Lakes region. In the 50's the city was the next big thing. Brand new theaters, a luxury hotel skyscraper, and a vibrant culture reminiscent of nearby Chicago. But most importantly, it was an industry powerhouse. Tooling, Hardware, and ammunition being the most important, and why we were a primary target for the Soviet nuclear arsenal. But even after the rustbelt catastrophe, Rockford flies under the radar as a massive industry center. A huge manufacturing hub for tooling and hardware, automotive, and probably most important, an aerospace industry that rivals places like Dayton and Wichita. Despite the wards full of empty lots and abandoned factories, it's incredible how much of a production output Rockford still has. It's just severely overlooked due to its smaller size, proximity to the Chicagoland area (some argue we're a part of the Chicago area), and its typical rustbelt decay.
A certain demographic has taken over Rockford. When they moved in Rockford was headed for decline.
my wife is from rockford, it sucks
The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) in Ontario is the most populous and fastest growing metropolitan area in the Great Lakes Region. The main reason is the large number of immigrants who move there every year which is way beyond any American metropolitan area.
I think it's important to point out that Columbus & Indianapolis haven't necessarily benefited from their more southern locations, rather being state capitals they have had different local economic factors that have maintained a different sort of stability. Each have an administrative infrastructure and large universities and a large services based economy associated with it and also didn't rely as heavily to my understanding on the heavy industry that was the backbone of cities like Detroit & Cleveland.
Madison is much the same story.
Columbus wasn’t really that much of an industrial city it’s always been more dominated by the finance and insurance industries
You forgot Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge ON, Toledo OH, and Erie PA
Daniel the video is already way longer than any I’ve ever made please give me a break
Grand Rapids lake effect snow has actually been pretty tame for a while now. Some years it’ll be over 50 in December, other years there will be a blizzard that shuts the schools down for 2 weeks like in 2019…
Good video! I personally draw the boundary a bit tighter, not because of development but due to culture. It's a stretch to include Pittsburgh in the Great Lakes area because the western Pa mountains has its own culture that is drastically different than Buffalo. But that's just my opinion. Keep up the good work!
A lot of the problem with comparing populations of the cities is that it doesn't take into effect the rise of suburbs in the latter half of the 20th century. For instance, the Chicago MSA has grown from 5.5 million in 1950 to 9.6 million in 2020. Even a city like Cleveland has seen its MSA grow in that timeframe, while the city proper lost population. Metro Detroit has added over a million people in the past 70 years.
Clevelander here, there's 2.8 million people in the region.
Great video man!
I respect the self-restraint displayed by not forcing a Gary Indiana joke. I go into almost all of these videos expecting Gary to get caught in the cross-fire. well done
Having driven from Toronto to Montreal, I am really surprised that Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City aren’t part of your great lakes mega area.
That's a really good point. I didn't think about that but I did wonder why Rochester, NY and central Illinois were not included. Your idea is much more of a surprise though. They are very close
THEYRE NOT ON THE LAKES OR BETWEEN THEM. The St Lawrence doesn't count
@@DJ_BROBOT The St Lawrence is at least connected to the great lakes. The video defines Madison, Rockford IL, Indianapolis, LOUISVILLE KY, and Pittsburg as part of the mega region, and you want to exclude major cities on the St Lawrence? How is Montreal not part of this mega region, and freaking Louisville is?
Was wondering about that as well. They are all part of the Great Lakes waterway, and are major population centers..
@@DJ_BROBOT how though?? It connects the Lakes the Atlantic. Quite an important passage it sounds like.
Just pointing out that Indianapolis is east of Chicago. Not west.
I live on lake superior, ashland wi and we get lake effect snow but just 30 miles east is the "snow belt" and they get hammered all winter! Another great video!
Grand Rapids is my city. Beautiful city, a growing city, beer city USA. I life west of Walker and north of George town. Where the grand river makes a bend on the left side of the map, the river bends from going north to directly west. I live in Allendale charter township. My house is right on the river.
A nice part of living here is that the cities are spaced out so well, its not like the country where cities are hours apart, but its also unlike the northeast which is city after city
Didn't expect to see you here
Well the cities are hours apart, it's like a 5 hour drive from Detroit to Chicago
@@pythontf188I’m a geography nerd too😂
@@galaxytravelent Because of traffic. Also i94 the main highway that connects the two cities is a two lane highway most of the way.
I think you should always go with the metro or urban area population, it seems more accurate and shows all the sphere of influence of the inner city, ou don’t see things like atlanta or miami at like 450k city population
Or how San Antonio isn’t actually that big.
He did that for previous videos, but for some reason, not this one
It's funny you mention that because he did that with the Northeast megalopolis region, but didn't do that here.
I’d love to see a Triopolis for the PNW cities of Vancouver BC, Seattle WA, and Portland OR. Gates has been pushing for high speed rail infrastructure for a couple years now. They (mostly) love each other and connect very easily socially and culturally. I would love to hear what u have to say. Plz 🙏
When you drive BC99/I-5 south from Vancouver it's almost entirely city or suburbia until you're past Eugene.
Lake effect precipitation, rain or snow, is one of the reasons why the Great Lakes Region is so fertile and agriculturally productive. That agricultural positive, not only feeds our area, but the world! I don't like your inference that this weather phenomenon is a negative.
Lake Effect Precipitation is also the reason it's so beautiful in West Michigan with all the Trees and Grenery.
Do the Mississippi River cities next
I think that in 20 years you are going to start seeing growth again in most places. Main things being we have LOTS of water, and housing is pretty affordable. All the people that left for the South and California are realizing that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. They are running out of water, becoming even hotter from climate change, and places like Florida will be underwater in 50 years.
Already Toronto is probably the fastest growing region on the continent, and I’ve always found it weird how that same success hasn’t happened in the usa
Florida won't be underwater in 50 years...but yeah, it was kinda dumb for people to move to a desert and live like they're in a temperate climate.
@@katieandkevinsears7724 wish something we could doo with all that empty land out west
With the Southwest drying out you will be seeing a lot more people moving closer to all that fresh water. It actually is already starting. There is going to be a rejuvenation in the places along the shores of these lakes. Abundant fresh water is life and people are coming. Hope yer ready.
Nah it hasn’t started yet. The Midwest hasn’t even finished bottoming out yet. It will continue to decline for the next 50 years. The Southwest continues to boom, and will continue to do so for probably another 50 years.
@@chriscoke2505 I think the Midwest has reached rock bottom and not showing improvements
As someone who lives in a suburb of Columbus, Columbus imo is super underrated. While Columbus isn't the most flashy, it has some notable places. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, which is outside the outerbelt, has a massive area of land and a lot of animals (some that are endangered) that are well cared for. Next to the zoo, there is a big waterpark called Zoombezi Bay, which is probably the most popular waterpark in Central Ohio. There's also COSI, which is next to the Scioto River, which runs through downtown. COSI is a big and interactive science learning center designed for kids to look and sometimes even play with. There's also a TON of metro parks around the city, a few colleges (most notably Ohio State, which even has its own agricultural section randomly in the middle of all the development), and a few big mall centers, such as Easton and Polaris. Oh, and then there's the Ohio State Fair, which takes place on the fairgrounds adjacent to the old Columbus Crew Stadium (a soccer stadium). The Ohio State Fair is arguably one of the biggest fairs in the entire midwest, with the few roller coasters and many other different amusement park rides, as well as different centers for different things, like a cow being sculpted out of cheese for example. Finally, there are the two reservoirs on the outskirts, Hoover and Alum Creek Lake. Both offer good areas for boating, canoeing, etc., and Alum Creek even has its own beach. While Columbus is definitely more of a commercial city as opposed to an industrial city (hence why Columbus is thriving rn), there is still a lot of stuff to do here. Plus, there's a new Intel (the company Intel) plant that is under construction right now on the outskirts of the city, so we still will have some source of industry here as well.
When I drive down to Chicago from Milwaukee, it's definitely rural, but at the same time it feels pretty developed
No way bro said Pittsburg had the best skyline 💀💀
I have been born, raised and lived in Cincinnati all my life, i am happy to be included here and thanks for your kind words to my city!!!
Interesting content. I think you should also include the populations of the various metropolitan areas.
You can be on public land and hunt 20 minutes from Detroit, it thins out pretty quick. Most of the building is following the freeways out of the city.
I get why you didn’t discuss the Ontario cities, but Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and London are quite different and worth mentioning, since Canadian cities typically punch above their weight. Hamilton is a true rust belt city that is slowly being amalgamated into the GTA- it was destined to be a lot larger than it currently is; Kitchener-Waterloo is a rapidly growing tech hub with a large German history influencing it’s built form- and is the smallest city in NA to have LRT; London… well I’m not personally sure as I’m from Hamilton. But it’s got a lot going on and is a regional centre, largest in southern Ontario outside the Golden Horseshoe (Toronto-Ham-Kw-Niagara)
I had no idea Indianapolis is that big. It really is the definition of a Midwest city - a major population centre, capital of its state, home to almost 1mil, and no one thinks about it outside of recognition for the Indianapolis 500.
Indianapolis is underrated, but it seems comparatively huge because he used city population instead of metro population, which is a completely arbitrary number
Fascinating video! I have been really digging into this topic as of late, and have been enjoying learning about the Great Lakes mega region.
I am very surprised Minnesota is not in this definition of ‘Great Lakes mega region’ considering that it is a Great Lake state. I’d personally extend it to make it more inclusive
Great video! I visited Cleveland for the first time this summer and I was impressed. Now granted, I stayed in the bougie section of town right in the Key Tower (which is one of the tallest buildings in the Midwest) and I don't know what the economic realities are of the region but I thought there was plenty to do and that the city had "good bones". It definitely seems on the upswing and with real estate prices still very competitive, I wouldn't count them out!
He ain’t been to Cleveland. He think Pittsburgh skyline is better that Chicago.
Thanks for highlighting my corner of the world!! I mean, like obviously this wasn’t made ✨for me✨ lol, but it’s always fun to see people talk about Detroit!
Detroit is hanging on the precipice of population growth right now actually (gasp!). It's mainly in the neighborhoods surrounding downtown, but there are other neighborhoods beginning to see improvement. I wouldn't be very surprised if the 2030 census showed growth.
The only reason why it hasn't shown growth is because the census undercounted again and the city is not building enough housing/ apartments to meet demand. All the nice apartments in Detroit are either on a wait list or overpriced.
Definitely undercounted, coming from a census employee.
@@redd_xiii Most of Michigan was undercounted.
Of all this Midwest cities, I personally think Chicago is the coolest to live in since it's like New York but affordable
Chicago may be cheaper than NYC, but it's far from affordable.
@@bmjv77 I'm from Los Angeles, so Chicago is either comparable to LA or slightly cheaper AND with access to better transit than here in LA!
Affordable?? 😂 Did you look up how much taxes that you'll be paying?
@@jrt2792 When I say affordable I mean by housing costs. Also here in California we also have high taxes but that's only a problem if you are more affluent.
Yeap Chicago would most definitely be the most interesting if your coming from cali,but other areas would be good for something smaller and you can invest in
These videos are starting to get top-notch in quality. You'll be at 100k soon, my friend.
Just a note on the population growth of Indianapolis and Toronto since 1950: both cities annexed most of their suburbs - so their growth is not necessarily organic.
same with columbus and louisville
Miami-Dade same effect, except that it was city loosing it's charter and combining services and administration with Dade County.
Cleveland's nickname (at least in Michigan) is "Cleveland -- The mistake on the lake". .
It's the only city I know of where a nearby river was so polluted that it caught on fire.
Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Detroit would like to have a word with you.
Rochester, NY is the Great lakes way you add Louisville but not Rochester Downtown Rochester is only 7 miles from Lake Ontario but Downtown Louisville is 250 miles from a great lake Why Louisville and Not Rochester
Being from Rochester, NY I felt that snub but I get it. Also the Great Lakes is gonna be the place to be in 50 years because we got that unlimited water glitch and preexisting infrastructure. Places like Arizona will be a wasteland by then.
I love Rochester! I have a home in Geneva! I live in NYC most of the time.
No tru
If you map traditional tech and manufacturing by looking where the auto industry, Eastman Kodak and Motorola were, then this video would be short and simple.
I like your videos, but excluding Rochester from a conversation about the Great Lakes Megaregion/Megalopolis but including Louisville Kentucky is kinda silly and I just can't take it seriously lol.
Rochester is the only major American city on Lake Ontario and is the traditional eastern end of every conventional Great Lakes Megalopolis discussion I've ever seen. There are rural areas between Rochester and Buffalo but they are connected by a good sized microregion (Batavia) and share sports teams and other similarities. They are definitely more connected than some of the other cities on this list.
Including Louisville and Indianapolis in a Great Lakes Megaregion but excluding a metro region of 1 million people that literally sits ON A GREAT LAKE is just...idk haha.
I was thinking the same thing. Besides Lake Ontario, people here a similar accent to places like Detroit and Chicago.
I know a lot of the cities in this region pretty well, and from my perspective, you were spot-on!
The idea megaopolis doesn't make much sense. It's just regional areas. There are hours of rural land between most the cities. You might as well have included st. Louis, Kansas city, Sioux falls etc. It would've been better if you added critera to how long of drive through rural areas and added geographic measurements like watersheds. Sorry for sounding harsh, it's just you really hated on Chicago's skyline.
I checked Google and it 100% is a megalopolis just as much and the northeast or Florida it's not just a mega region so idk why people keep saying its not a megalopolis
Cleveland is as good of an example of lake effect snow as Buffalo. South Buffalo gets tons of snow compared to the rest of the city. In Cleveland, it’s west side versus east side. The same storm can dump 10x as much snow in the persistent snow belts as on the other areas.
Sometimes, lake effect snow can exist WAY downwind of the Great Lakes. Occasionally as far south as Nashville, we would see lake effect snow. It's quite uncommon, but there have been nights where we would get very light snow in a narrow band that started over the southern half of Lake Michigan. It's remarkable. Good video!
Nice video on an underrated region. I do think that your growth statistics were somewhat unrepresentative of actual population though. Using cities proper instead of metro areas doesn’t tell the whole story, especially in a place like Detroit (Michigan’s population has hardly changed, indicating movement to suburbs immediately surrounding Detroit, not complete urban abandonment as you insinuated). I’d like to see more videos like this one with a focus on metro areas!
Being from Detroit, I have been to most of these cities more than once so I would say you did a good job on defining the region
I lived in the Cleveland and then Youngstown areas in the 70s. Moving south to NC for the weather and better opportunities. Lake effect snow was a real downer all winter long. I'm also very familiar with Pittsburgh, having lived near there in Wheeling WV and visiting frequently more recently. PS: I've considered only the cities near the lakes, the Great Lakes region, the remainder of your area is just the "midwest" an odd name considering its not really the middle of the country. You can also separate out the Ohio River valley, with just a few large cities, but a pretty constant stream of small towns as you drive along the river, EG Pittsburgh, East Liverpool, Stubenville, Wheeling, Moundsville, Marietta, Parkersburg, Huntington, on to Cinci, and beyond. Population has dropped in some given the decline in industry there but is still very settled.
At 12:26 there’s actually a LOT to the story of the canal in Chicago. My latest video covers it and how it was one of the greatest waterway engineering projects, while at the same time being one of the worst.
Thank you for shedding light on these underrated cities! Really interesting video. 🔥
I visited Buffalo once and it has actually been growing a lot since 2010 and is on the rise. A 70 year period can have a lot of ups and downs. But after my visit it is safe to say Buffalo is on the rise.
It certainly is (Western New York native).
One of the nice things about the Great Lakes Megalopolis is that to decrease engine knock, many of the cities provide leaded water.
Lead pipes CAN be fine because they naturally build up a protective film on the inside if you don't strip it off by using the wrong additives and then fake the water quality tests.
i do agree that the smaller cities should have been skipped but hamiilton has sucka rich rust belt city full of mafia and has the most waterfalls on earth so you should have talked about it due to the population being around 800K
I personally don't really feel areas south quite fit into the same mold as the cities along the I-94 and I-90 corridors. However, if I were to include Indy, Louisville, Cinci, and Columbus I would include Minneapolis and Duluth. I only mention Duluth not because it's a particularly large city, but because of it's huge importance in Great Lakes shipping... which in one way or another ties much of this region together.
Really gotta label these populations by metro area. 300k doesn’t define Cincinnati’s 2.3M. 800k doesn’t define Indianapolis’ 2.5M. Etc. Etc.
Many regions defined as a megalopolis in the US are really just two or three different areas pretty close together. For example, Florida is really Just Orlando/Tampa/Fort Myers and the East Coast, separated by Ocala National Forest. The Southeast megalopolis is separated by Banks and Franklin County in Georgia, and The Great Lakes Megaregion is separated by the Northwest Corner of Ohio and The areas just north of I-70
Detroit is and always will be a great city and is improving. The metro Detroit area has always had a pretty stable population and is growing now. Most of the Detroit area has little crime and no blight. This video would be better if you talked about the metropolitan areas as a whole, city limits are very misleading. Many of these cities haven't been able to expand their borders for a long time like other cities. For example the metro Detroit area has a larger population then the Indianapolis and Columbus areas combined. And if Detroit's city limits covered the same square mileage as those 2 cities, it would still have well over a million people.
Cleveland is a bit deceptive in population though. According to what I can find greater Cleveland is more like 2 million when you throw in the surrounding suburbs, the difference between Cleveland and Columbus is all the suburbs seem to be part of Columbus proper. If you throw in Akron it’s the Cleveland-Akron metro area is easily the most populous in Ohio.
Aye Grand Rapidian here great video ☝🏽
That's where I'm from