Can a metropolis plop up in the middle of nowhere nowadays?

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Las Vegas is the most recent city I can think of that basically boomed out of nothing pretty quickly.

Phoenix and Charlotte as well.

[Ant131531]

I really hope African cities and countries can grow more economically powerful and independent....with that much growth, I mean...I don't know how they'll be able to manage all those people without the infrastructure and tax dollars. Feels like a disaster waiting to occur if strong economic growth does not occur and I mean in the hands of the government and the people. Not just the government.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Kenneth

That would be cool to see a brand new city rise out of nothing like in China, or India or African. This will never happen in US, there isnt enough people, plus other factors.

Some cities have risen out of nothing very quickly, just not in the last 50 years unless you count exurbs and second cities like former secondary regional large towns.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Some cities have risen out of nothing very quickly, just not in the last 50 years unless you count exurbs and second cities like former secondary regional large towns.

Las Vegas metropolitan area population in 1960: 127,016
Las Vegas metropolitan area population in 2010: 1,951,269

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by Kenneth

That would be cool to see a brand new city rise out of nothing like in China, or India or African. This will never happen in US, there isnt enough people, plus other factors.

It would take some sort of mass immigration on the level of the late 19th/ early 20th Century.

I guess some cities or towns that suddenly boomed and grew out of nothing are in places like North Dakota (oil boom), but not enough people on the level to warrant massive, pre-planned cities like in U.A.E. or Asia.

But on the side of fantasy, the U.S. could theoretically build cities like this, and we would have the people. Just increase the amount of people that we could let in. Set the max to 100 million per year, and most of Africa, impoverished parts of Asia, and so on would move to the U.S.. Along with it, a slur of problems (jobs, assimilation, system burden), but... BUT... we could increase the population theoretically to very high numbers if we wanted too and build massive cities like in China. This of course being a fantasy proposal, but... if the cap was ridiculously high, people would move here for a better life.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Las Vegas metropolitan area population in 1960: 127,016
Las Vegas metropolitan area population in 2010: 1,951,269

But that's not nothing. That's small but not completely nothing. Vegas even had a university by then.

Nothing, more or less, would be St. George, Utah 40 years ago. About 20,000 people lived in Washington County/St. George area.

That said, Vegas is the resort town model I mentioned earlier. Seems clear to me I got my answer, that if a metropolis is gonna spring out of nowhere, it's most likely going to be a resort town, at least in this day and age.

On a side note, coincidentally, Clark County borders Washington County and the two cities are only 120 or so miles apart.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

That said, Vegas is the resort town model I mentioned earlier. Seems clear to me I got my answer, that if a metropolis is gonna spring out of nowhere, it's most likely going to be a resort town, at least in this day and age.

What about religious/ethnic settlements like Kiryas Joel in NY state with super high birth rates?

1976 - population 0
1990 - 7,400
2010 - 20,000
2014 estimates - 22,200

Median age of residents is 13.2 years old.
Don't be fooled by the relatively low numbers either. Technically the municipal boundaries are only 1.1 sq miles. So its pretty dense nowadays. They even have a bus system now.

[upnorthsox]

Naperville, Il

1960 - 12,933

2013 - 144,864 (Est.)

And its next door neighbor Aurora, Il:

1960 - 63,715

2013 - 199,963

And its neighbor on the other side Bolingbrook, Il:

1970 (it didn't exist in 1960) - 7,651

2012 - 74,039

And one more neighbor, Romeoville, Il:

1957 - 197

2011 - 39,912

[Minato Ku]

Those areas are suburbs of Chicago, this is not the creation of new metropolis.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

i could picture it happening in say canada or mexico, if there was some sort of major immigrant influx for some reason. much less so in the usa, because as mentioned, there is less middle of nowhere and also because the usa has plenty of already built, yet depopulated cities that could absorb a big influx of people, because they already have a history of having more people and they still have the basic big city infrastructure -- ie., the old rustbelt.

It could NEVER happen in Canada.

Yes there can be small boom town like Ft. McMurray although the boom days are over and estimates show the population beginning to decline due to the plunge in oil prices.

In terms of a massive influx of immigrants, it wouldn't make a hoot of difference. New immigrants head to Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver in that order. Very few make even bother looking outside those 3 big cities. A huge influx would simply result in those cities growing faster but nothing more.

Even if Canada's population was to triple overnight the chances of an instant metropolis in Canada is somewhere between zero and nil.

[upnorthsox]

More like exurbs for most of that time, and It's still almost 500,000 people in a location that was mostly cornfields 50 yrs ago.

And in 50 yrs, Chicago may be a suburb of Naperville.

[Minato Ku]

Those places grew because of the proximity of Chicago.
It is not the creation of new metropolis but the expansion of Chicago.

[Yuri]

Impossible to happen in Brazil today.

My city, Londrina (southern Brazil) were founded in 1929 by a British real estate company in the middle of the forest and today has almost 1.2 million inhabitants in the metro area.

And of course, Brasília. From zero in 1960 to 4 million today.

[ue]

In the lower-48 of the US? Probably not. Like others have mentioned, I think we could see already established towns and cities in the Northern Plains develop into major centres, but that's about it. I think the only part of the US that could see brand new establishments emerge into cities would be parts of Alaska.

In Canada, the Territories and, to a lesser degree, the northern parts of the provinces (especially SK to Labrador) could definitely see new cities emerge as the climate up there warms up. By that same token, Greenland, the Svalbard Islands, Asian Russia, maybe Mongolia, and Antarctica have similar potentials.

The Australian Outback is a warmer region that could potentially see a new city established out of nowhere, but I highly doubt it.

The problem is that pretty much anywhere that a settlement could be established has been established, aside from presently harsh regions of the world. And these days, the amount of establishments could potentially be redundant, which is leading to the death of many small towns as we speak.

[hammersklavier]

The vast majority of cities in history have been abandoned. Many -- such as the ones that once existed in the Eastern Woodlands or Amazonia -- have left very little behind, at times next to nothing. Cities get established as they're needed (for various purposes) and abandoned when they don't fill a niche anymore.

There actually is a rapidly-growing city in the "middle of nowhere": Fort McMurray, Alberta. Center of the tar sands region.

So if something is happening ... of course it can happen.

[ue]

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

The vast majority of cities in history have been abandoned. Many -- such as the ones that once existed in the Eastern Woodlands or Amazonia -- have left very little behind, at times next to nothing. Cities get established as they're needed (for various purposes) and abandoned when they don't fill a niche anymore.

There actually is a rapidly-growing city in the "middle of nowhere": Fort McMurray, Alberta. Center of the tar sands region.

So if something is happening ... of course it can happen.

I guess it depends on how literal you're taking the question. Fort McMurray was established as a fur trade post back in 1870, so it isn't as if it was recently established and blossomed to 75,000 overnight. But it is true that for most of its history Fort McMurray was barely a speck on the map, having less than 1,000 people before WWII. And it is in the middle of nowhere.

I think the original question was more asking about if Milton Keynes-esque cities have the potential to pop up today, not if a place like Bismark, North Dakota will one day blossom into a metro area rivaling Winnipeg.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by ue

The problem is that pretty much anywhere that a settlement could be established has been established, aside from presently harsh regions of the world. And these days, the amount of establishments could potentially be redundant, which is leading to the death of many small towns as we speak.

Not even close, it's just a matter of figuring out why anyone would want to live away from civilization just for the sake of starting brand new these days. Most cities and civilizations developed with people farming, and especially in the US just wanting more land for doing so or to stretch their legs, but given the advances in technology and transportation, that's not very viable or appealing anymore and now even rural areas are being encroached upon by urbanity.

People do like to go on vacation and, as a relative bait and switch, move to places they enjoyed vacationing in (usually only to be disappointed that living somewhere is different than vacationing to it). That's part of how Miami went from incorporation in 1896 to being able to host a political convention and establishing a university only three decades later.

Originally Posted by hammersklavier

The vast majority of cities in history have been abandoned. Many -- such as the ones that once existed in the Eastern Woodlands or Amazonia -- have left very little behind, at times next to nothing. Cities get established as they're needed (for various purposes) and abandoned when they don't fill a niche anymore.

There actually is a rapidly-growing city in the "middle of nowhere": Fort McMurray, Alberta. Center of the tar sands region.

So if something is happening ... of course it can happen.

Most cities die due to war, failed/dying industry or geology.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Most cities die due to war, failed/dying industry or geology.

Very few cities have ever died due to war. Even Carthage, who Rome was so pissed off at that they razed flat and salted their fields, got revived not long after the Third Punic War and was the second largest city in the western empire during the imperial era.

Likewise, it takes an incredible geological catastrophe to really kill a city dead. Enough to render the land literally uninhabitable. And humans are quite good at making uninhabitable land habitable.

No, there is exactly one thing that'll really kill a city, and that's a lack of economic impetus. Plains farming towns are dying because there's no real room for small farming towns on the Plains anymore. Cairo boomed because of its confluence but died as through traffic shifted from the river to the railroads, which could go overland and generally went to Chicago or St. Louis instead. Cities with all their economic eggs in one basket are especially fragile: Manchester sputtered as the textile industry was replaced due to overseas competition; so has Detroit with automobiles.

And of course, a dying country leads to dying cities -- as the western Roman Empire failed, many of its major cities just up and died, creating room for minor what had been trade outposts (like Paris) to grow. Paris was, for the first millennium of its existence, little more than a minor trade outpost where the major north-south road forded the Seine right around its fall line. It didn't become a major center until the seat of French government moved there. Meanwhile, cities like Ostia and Carthage died dead as the empire fell apart.

[brickell]

Remember this proposal?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...laws-investors

[Leo the Dog]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Phoenix and Charlotte as well.

Metro Phoenix is now around 4.5 million.
1960 ~ 500-600k

By 2030, estimated to have population of 6.3 million.