I-35 Corridor

The I-35 Corridor, also known as the I-35 Megalopolis, is a group of metropolitan areas in the southern Interior Plains region of the United States. It runs from San Antonio, Texas in the south to Kansas City, Missouri in the north roughly along Interstate 35. The megopolis also includes the major cities of Oklahoma City, Austin, Fort Worth, and Dallas. San Antonio is the largest city in the megapolis.

I-35 Corridor contains five of the largest urban areas and seven of the "50 largest cities" in the U.S. With a population of over 15 million residents, it is one of the fastest growing transmetropolitan regions in North America. [ [http://www.mi.vt.edu/uploads/megacensusreport.pdf MegaCensusReport.indd ] ]

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.

Comparisons and developments

Compared to other regions such as BosWash and Japan's Pacific Belt, the "I-35 Corridor" 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.

U.S. Census statistics

The table above includes:
*Metropolitan Statistical Areas that are not part of a CSA (see List of United States metropolitan statistical areas by population), based on their MSA ranking (compared to CSA rankings. **For instance, Austin MSA [MSA rank 37] is not part of a CSA but is larger than Oklahoma City CSA [CSA rank 34] ; therefore Austin MSA is listed prior to Oklahoma City CSA).
*micropolitan or rural areas (see List of United States micropolitan statistical areas by population),

List of cities

The major cities in the I-35 megalopolis include the following:

* Missouri
**Kansas City, Missouri Pop: 447,306
* Kansas
**Kansas City, Kansas Pop: 146,866
**Overland Park, Kansas Pop: 165,890
**Topeka, Kansas Pop: 122,113
**Wichita, Kansas Pop: 357,698
* Oklahoma
**Tulsa, Oklahoma Pop: 382,872
**Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Pop: 547,800
**Norman, Oklahoma Pop: 102,827
* Texas
**Dallas, Texas Pop: 1,232,940
**Fort Worth, Texas Pop: 681,818
**Austin, Texas Pop: 743,074
** San Antonio, Texas Pop: 1,296,682

References