In a truly global context, the contemporary urban landscape is changing dramatically. The megaregion has emerged as the primary scale of economic development and the home of the world’s wealth, innovation and progress. Increasingly expensive and scarce land, as well as the protection and preservation of farmlands and habitats, are driving up density. A renewed emphasis on environmental sustainability means not just greener building treatments and improved fuel efficiencies, but a need to redirect infrastructural investments in far more efficient ways. If, as the Regional Plan Association asserts, megaregions have replaced metropolitan regions and cities as the geographic units of the global economy, they must be planned, structured and supplied to maximize their potential as such. This thesis proposes a regional plan for the Windsor/Quebec corridor that attempts to satisfy any qualitative aspirations of the current “Places to Grow” plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe while strategically repositioning growth in the region to be more globally competitive and sustainable. This proposal utilizes two very specific existing elements in expanded roles; the 400 series highways as an infrastructural distribution network, and the regional shopping mall as a strategic site for discreet, distributed urban cores. Together, these two elements form a conceptual city at the megaregional scale; a concentrated, sprawl-free, efficient and sustainable form of city-making that also integrates seamlessly into the existing urban morphology.

In a truly global context, the contemporary urban landscape is changing dramatically. The megaregion has emerged as the primary scale of economic development and the home of the world’s wealth, innovation and progress. Increasingly expensive and scarce land, as well as the protection and preservation of farmlands and habitats, are driving up density. A renewed emphasis on environmental sustainability means not just greener building treatments and improved fuel efficiencies, but a need to redirect infrastructural investments in far more efficient ways. If, as the Regional Plan Association asserts, megaregions have replaced metropolitan regions and cities as the geographic units of the global economy, they must be planned, structured and supplied to maximize their potential as such. This thesis proposes a regional plan for the Windsor/Quebec corridor that attempts to satisfy any qualitative aspirations of the current “Places to Grow” plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe while strategically repositioning growth in the region to be more globally competitive and sustainable. This proposal utilizes two very specific existing elements in expanded roles; the 400 series highways as an infrastructural distribution network, and the regional shopping mall as a strategic site for discreet, distributed urban cores. Together, these two elements form a conceptual city at the megaregional scale; a concentrated, sprawl-free, efficient and sustainable form of city-making that also integrates seamlessly into the existing urban morphology.

Since the 1950s, myriad forces have expanded America's urban, metropolitan and megaregion development forms. Using a net worker exchange model, the geographic extent of commuter sheds is documented for 22 metropolitan areas within the continental United States. In addition to commuting patterns, county-to-county migration data provide collaborating evidence for the extent of metropolitan commuter sheds. Actual commuter sheds are significantly larger than the boundaries of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, created by the federal government to review and approve transportation investments in metropolitan areas. For contiguous metropolitan areas, criteria are suggested for recognizing Transportation Megaregions based on their role as global gateways and their potential for high-speed rail service. By gaining a better understanding of development patterns at urban, metropolitan and megaregion scales, the dissertation addresses ways to improve transportation governance. The focus of this study is not on the civil engineering aspects of transportation planning. Rather, the dissertation sets forth a new paradigm for transportation governance that includes scale-dependent decision-making and funding strategies. / Ph. D.

The megaregion spatial form has grown in prominence in recent years in planning thought, but the relationship between megaregions and the aviation sector is rather untouched in research. The purpose of this study is to examine the role airports play as transportation hubs for megaregions, and how the megaregions are connected through air traffic. Comparing the megaregions involved an empirical study using attribute data about the megaregions and the flows between them. The infrastructure in the megaregions was compared by density and type of airports, including an examination into airline hubs. The connectivity between megaregions, non-megaregion areas, and the international market was analyzed employing T-100 data, separating the analysis for the passenger and freight sectors. The top flows in the country were examined, along with the relationships each megaregion has individually, and particularly their internal flows. Megaregions are much more active in air travel than non-megaregion areas due to a larger presence of airline hubs and greater infrastructure. The international component of the passenger and freight sectors is growing the fastest in relation to megaregions, but only for the freight sector is this the largest component. The largest component of the passenger sector is the flows between megaregions. Flows within megaregions for the passenger sector are growing slowly and are declining in the freight sector, but short-haul air traffic continues to be the cause of congestion. The megaregion is a suitable level to manage infrastructure investment to better prepare the regions for the coming growth. A megaregion-level institution is best suited to managing the issues which must be faced by the numerous jurisdictions.

In the spring of 2004, a synergistic team of professors, practitioners, and graduate students coalesced in a graduate planning studio at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) with the greatest of ambitions: to craft a “Plan for America,” through the year 2050. Their work led to a megaregional revival, weaving the work of Jean Gottman, old regionalists like Benton MacKaye, and New Regionalists like Peter Calthrope into a new perspective on regional planning. In the brief period that followed, a flurry of megaregional research was produced by scholars at Penn, Georgia Tech, the University of Texas at Austin, the Regional Plan Association, and the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy. But nearly a decade into this megaregional revival, old questions about the concept continue to simmer while many new questions emerge, which begs the question: what exactly has this flurry of megaregional research settled? How exactly are megaregions defined and delineated? Do they even have fixed boundaries? Assuming a consensus emerged on how to define and delineate the space, how could such a large and unwieldy scale be governed? Are megaregions functional economic units or merely a product of poorly regulated sprawl development over vast expanses? If they are indeed functional units, how are they interacting or competing with one another for growth, development, and finite public resources? The answers to these questions have been, well, elusive. This thesis begins to remedy this glaring gap in the literature by conducting semi-structured interviews with the key informants credited with leading the conception and evolution of megaregional thought in the U.S. With their aid, this thesis begins to contextualize the provenance, the evolution, the barriers to progress, and the potential future trajectories of the megaregional construct. One of these potential future trajectories – megaregional economic development – is explored between the nation’s only physically linked pair of megaregions: the Texas Triangle and Gulf Coast. In the final chapter of this thesis, recommendations drawn from these analyses are made for the research, the pedagogy, and the practice of planning for megaregions. Together, this triptych of recommendations outlines a path towards a megaregional future. / text

This thesis project aims to target the increasing number of people who live, work and transit through the densely populated metropolises that, fused together, create megaregions. These individuals, an already big and ever increasing number of people, are the so-called super-commuters, members of the workforce whose commutes surpass the figures of 90 minutes or, alternatively, 145 km in a single-way.As it happens with others who live in the same geographical region, they experience the need or wish of working in the dense urban centres that offer plenty of job opportunities, but little housing opportunities. This lack of housing paired with its very high and ever increasing prices forces these people to disperse and to search for living places farther away from their workplaces, thus trading convenience and free time for long commutes. Super-commuting is indeed showing a growing trend, not only in the number of super-commuters themselves but also in the duration of commutes.Commutes are getting lengthier for a number of reasons, such as increasingly comfortable vehicles, technological advancements that help render commuting time either productive or entertaining.However, in a post-pandemic society, many companies are also offering their employees the chance to adopt hybrid work modes with more days spent working from home - which makes workers consider living farther away from their workplaces as they need to commute less (number of times). It is an undeniable fact that the longer the commute, the less free time one worker has, either for resting or doing something productive. It is also true that in an increasingly fast-paced technological world, people have also increasing difficulties in separating their professional and personal lives. Therefore, the approach of this thesis project goes through offering people the chance to make the most out of their commutes, so as to free more of their time when not commuting or working - time to spend with their loved ones or to be used to do whatever they would like. To achieve that, this project contemplates the use of autonomous technologies expected to become more widespread within the automotive industry; as by rendering vehicles autonomous would free people from driving and let them allocate their time to other tasks. This thesis project offers a holistic proposal of a premium commuting service targeted to super-commuters living and working within the Northern California megaregion. This service would connect peripheral communities directly to the Bay Area, where most companies are located, through a door-to-hub service.It focuses on how users of this service might experience their commutes by presenting case studies of three different types of professionals with diverse needs, and exploring how they would use it as a means of making their commutes as convenient and efficient as possible. The process herein exposed goes through the various stages of design development, from research to ideation and leading to a final proposal, consisting of a service, mobile booking app and exterior + interior design of a vehicle.