ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses major demographic and housing trends, employment and development projections, the extent of economic dependency, attractiveness characteristics, and major planning and development challenges in southwest megapolitan cluster. The Southwest megapolitan cluster has one of the nation's highest percentages of population living in counties of metropolitan areas of more than 1 million residents, nearly 90 percent. The Southwest megapolitan cluster extends from the Pacific Ocean east to the Sonoran Desert. Especially in the Southwest megapolitan cluster, virtually all growth will be among minorities. With nearly 13 million new residents expected between 2010 and 2040, the Southwest megapolitan cluster will see the nation's largest amount of growth. About three-quarters of the Southwest megapolitan cluster's population lives in a knowledge class county, but the distribution is skewed. Employment in the Southwest supported about 8.0 billion square feet of nonresidential space, including industrial, commercial, and institutional uses, in 2010.
