Moving the Concept of Megaregions into Transportation Planning: Workshop Proceedings
Carol Abel Lewis, Sara Land and Bethelhem Afefayane, Texas Southern University, August 2012, 63 pp.
An area of growing dialog among transportation professionals is about megaregions and the affect the concept may have on long range travel demand and the movement of goods and people throughout a state or region. Megaregion connotes that an individual urban area does not operate singly, but in concert with other urban and rural areas as a comprehensive unit providing and attracting goods and services for the world. As these complex mobility arrangements occur, planning entities are continuing to conduct more localized scaled activities for their independent urban and rural areas. Key questions should be asked about whether another planning layer should be added that examines the megaregions and investigates the interrelationships to determine if advantages or efficiencies might be available by considering operation of the complex whole as one unit. Clearly, such an assessment would not negate the smaller, local level planning activities, but may offer the potential to more competitively posture a megaregion in line with the other 40 or so world megaregions. This work convened a workshop addressing that planning concept. Workshop participants agreed that planning for the megaregions should be added to the elements included in long range plan development.
Keywords: Megaregions, Regional Planning
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