Jan Gottman’s concept of megalopolis

Abstract

The article deals with Jean Gottmann’s concept of the megalopolis. In the middle of the twentieth century Gottmann fixed the beginning of a new stage of urbanization, which is characterized by the formation of vast urban regions. “Regional iconography” is the basis for his concept of the megalopolis. According to “regional iconography” borders are formed under the influence of culture and lifestyle, and so they are symbolic entities. The development of information and communication technologies, according to Gottmann, changes the daily lives of people, in particular, simplifies moving over long distances, which makes the formation of a megalopolis possible. The researcher focuses on the urbanized region of the northeast coast of the United States, which covers the territory from Boston to Washington. This urbanized region without significant differences between urban and rural areas is called “megalopolis” by Gottmann. Megalopolises, according to Gottmann, are one of the leading forms of urbanization of the 20th century and are considered as the result of the formation of a post-industrial society, with an increasing number of people employed in the service sector who are actively involved in the suburbanization process. One of the main problems is the lack of megalopolises’ effective management, because decision-making requires combined actions from the authorities of several administrative-territorial units. Nevertheless, city planning should be gradually superseded by regional planning, since it corresponds to the urbanization trends fixed in the second half of the 20th century. Gottmann’s ideas on the formation of urbanized regions become common, their continuation are the works of researchers at the Los Angeles School, for example.