A
megalopolis (sometimes called a
megapolis; also
megaregion, or
supercity) is typically defined as a chain of roughly adjacent
metropolitan areas. The term was used by
Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book
Cities in Evolution, by
Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book,
The Decline of the West, and
Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book,
The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline. Later, it was used by
Jean Gottmann in 1954, to describe the chain of metropolitan areas along the
northeastern seaboard of the U.S. extending from
Boston,
Massachusetts through
New York City,
Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and ending in
Washington, D.C. and
Northern Virginia. The latter is sometimes called the "
BosWash megalopolis".