WSJ article fortifies Obama’s remarks on rural America

WSJ rolled out an article Saturday on the rise and significance of mega-regions — essentially making the case that they are the global economy:

The real driving force of the world economy is a new and incredibly powerful economic unit: the mega-region.

Extending far beyond a single core city and its surrounding suburbs, a mega-region is an area that hosts business and economic activity on a massive scale, generating a large share of the world’s economic activity and an even larger share of its scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

While there are 191 nations in the world, just 40 significant mega-regions power the global economy. Home to more than one-fifth of the world’s population, these 40 megas account for two-thirds of global economic output and more than 85% of all global innovation.

The author makes several salient points, touching on issues such as density and mass transit. Today though I just want to make one observation.

With these statistics in hand, it’s rather difficult to argue that rural America hasn’t been left behind in our era of globalization. This leads me to the conclusion that all this hype over what Obama said is based less on reality and much more on the nature of politics as a blood sport.

See also:

+ Obama’s remarks on small town America spot on

It would be very interesting to see where in the U.S. are considered “mega-regions”. When major metropolitan areas are ranked, in terms of population, the “mega-region” concept becomes very clear: suburbs of LA are higher than other “major” cities (Anaheim has more people than Kansas City, for instance). Thus, cities paired with large suburbs and the outlying areas of those suburbs can easily form a “mega-region”.

But, how many “mega-regions” exist between Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and D.C.? What about Portland and Seattle? Would these be combined into one “mega-region” extending from Eugene up I-5 to the Northern Seattle ‘burbs?