Talk:Megacity

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Contents 1 BoxWash??? 2 Odd Content 3 Contradiction 4 8 or ten million? 5 The Matrix Comment 6 Removing Chicago 7 Chicago Shall Remain 8 Metroplex 9 Megacities in fiction 10 Hyper city 11 References 12 Conflicting information in article

[edit] BoxWash???

The BosWash Megacity has a population of around 40 Million, this is far more then any of the ather 10 largest in order.

What is the BoxWash? (also please sign your Edit)--Gephart 21:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

BosWash, its the largest meda city in the world

Maybe - it depends on how one defines these things, and maybe this does need to be noted in the article. In any case, see this definition from Metropolitan area -

The core cities in a polycentric metropolitan area need not be physically connected by continuous built-up development, distinguishing the concept from conurbation, which requires urban contiguity. In a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that central cities together constitute a large population nucleus with which other constituent parts have a high degree of integration.

In practice the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Sometimes they are little different from an urban area, and in other cases they cover broad regions that have little relation to the traditional concept of a city as a single urban settlement --Alexxx1 ^{(talk/contribs)} 04:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What actually needs to be fixed is the fact that the article is now internally inconsistent. It says the Tokyo is the biggest in the world but then lists BosWash as the biggest. Also, the list is now not consistent with the source cited for the population statistics - Th. Brinkoff. --Alexxx1 ^{(talk/contribs)} 04:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Odd Content

Not much of an editor, just pointing out some oddities:

"In 1950 New York was the only such area. There are nineteen as of 2004; an increase from only nine in 1985."

What are the nineteen? What were the nine? (OK, we can live without the nine, but the current nineteen would seem critical to the article!)

"as seen in Boston - New York - Philadelphia - Baltimore - Washington (BosWash), Los Angeles - San Diego (The Southland), Tokyo-Osaka, Johannesburg-Pretoria or Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo."

Weird list, a mix of hyphens and commas and unexplained brackets. Even in its entirity it doesn't seem to achieve anything.

"Many megacities have such a high population density that the cost of living is too high for those of average means to have a decent living space. Also, in such areas people are potentially more vulnerable to natural disasters and terrorism. Some consider this to be a problem of overpopulation, others merely as one of overconcentration."

This whole paragraph would need to be expanded or removed imho. Either cover the economic issues properly or not at all.

--dahamsta 17:00, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

I agree that the whole section is not very clear. I see a couple of ways to organize:

• It seems like we need to have a definition first. See http://www.megacities.uni-koeln.de/documentation/megacity/start.htm which states a couple of megacities definitions. It also needs to be clear that there are different sources with different population estimates.
• History - some stats about how many megacities there were at a particular time, based on one or more definitions.
• Current - I don't think the citied sources are definitive. Here is the best I found: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wup2003/WUP2003Report.pdf
• Projections
• and on with the rest of the sections

-- Clubmarx 02:35, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

OK I took out the seemingly contradictory or nonsensical parts. I tried to show the variations in definitions first. I think there are still factual errors in the Largest megacities section. I didn't get to that. Clubmarx 01:00, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

I have doubts whether the Randstad should be included in this article. According to its article it has a population of 7.1 million. This does not seem to meet the definition of a Megacity provided in the article, i.e. a population greater than 10 million.

-Alexxx1

[edit] 8 or ten million?

What is the source for saying that a megacity is composed of ten million people? My environmental science book says it's 8 million to a megacity. Citizen Premier 05:47, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I think that the UN also defines a megacity as having an urban area with a population of more than 8 million [1]. I will edit the article accordingly. --AMorris (talk)●(contribs) 06:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The distinction is important as two of the cities mentioned (Bogotá and Shenzhen) are in the discussed range.132.192.14.232 18:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The article in New Scientist Magazine which is used as citation in Ecopolis (city) defines the megacity at 8 million:

Pearce, Fred. "Ecopolis Now". New Scientist Magazine. 17 June 2006.

Robinoke 13:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that there are different definitions. Maybe the introduction to the article could do with a revamping to indicate that there are a range of population figures that are considered to be the threshold for a megacity by different sources. If in fact, 8 million is the most commonly used figure, then the article should obviously reflect that. Are there more sources that use 10 million as a figure? --Alexxx1 ^{(talk/contribs)} 01:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Matrix Comment

"The City" in the Matrix is likely Chicago, Illinois. I know of no other city in the world with a "State" Street that intersects with a "Balbo" Drive.

[edit] Removing Chicago

Chicago is listed as a megacity, but as far as I know, the metropolitan area only has about 9 million people. Therefore, I am removing it from the list. --172.133.109.142 20:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chicago Shall Remain

Maybe this is the slight difference between Megacity and Megalopolis. A Megalopolis it is a city with tangent cities that make up a larger entity (more than 10 million, perhaps?). Because of proximity, economic ties and social dependencies, Milwaukee, with it's 1.7 million, would definately be included in the Chicago Megalopolis (let alone Gary), thus tipping the scales.

[edit] Metroplex

Can someone please find some reputable newspaper article that refers to an area besides Dallas as Metroplex? --Filthy swine 06:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Megacities in fiction

I have restored the following sentence: Many of these fictional depictions were inspired by Fritz Lang's 1927 film, Metropolis. Ridley Scott's 1982 film, Blade Runner, features an influential depiction of Los Angeles in 2019.

I don't see why it should be removed from the article, as this section on fiction is addressing the development fictional representations of the concept of the megacity. If these films were part of how that fictional representation has developed over time and have influenced other portrayals of megacities, then they are a perfectly legitimate part of this discussion and should remain. Besides which, I would argue that the films do actually depict megacities. Although this may not be made explicitly clear, it may be implied by certain shots of the cities themselves. --Alexxx1 ^{(talk/contribs)} 00:35, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hyper city

According to this article [2] Tokyo is technically a hyper city because it has more than 20 million people.

This population shift will lead to a new kind of city -- "mega cities" with more than 10 million people will soon be eclipsed by "hyper cities" with more than 20 million.

So far, only Tokyo qualifies as a "hyper city" but the greater city areas of Mumbai, Lagos, Dhaka and Sao Paulo will also surpass 20 million by 2015, according to U.N. projections. Richard Cane 01:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

I could not find the article in New Scientist called "How Big Can Cities Get?" on Lexis Nexis or NS's web site.

See for yourself: http://www.newscientist.com/search.ns?articleQuery.queryString=issue:2556&doSearch=true&articleQuery.sortOrder=1

Where is this article? 161.253.12.191 23:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflicting information in article

this article lists different populations for the worlds largest "megacity's" can this be cleaned up? On one list New York is the second largest megacity, on the other Seoul is, why the contradictions? Alexcount 16:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)