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megalopolis  

Definition

  • Megalopolis was an ancient mainland Greek city, founded in 369 BCE, whose name quite literally means “large city.” In the 20th century, various authors, most notably Lewis Mumford, used the term with the same general meaning as metropolis, a large city and its surrounding suburbs. In the 1950s and early 1960s, however, two authors, the French geographer Jean Gottmann and the Greek planner Constantinos A. Doxiadis, gave the term megalopolis a different and greater meaning, redefining it as an interlocking group of metropolises, forming a polynuclear urban region with at least 20 million inhabitants. [Source: Encyclopedia of Social Problems; Megalopolis]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/megalopolis

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