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 Great Lakes Megapolitan Cluster. Over the period 2010–2040, the Great Lakes megapolitan cluster will add about 5.4 million people, but its non-Hispanic white population will fall while the minority population groups will increase by more than 60 percent. About 70 percent of the residents in the Great Lakes megapolitan cluster live in a county of a metropolitan area of more than one million residents, and more than 95 percent live in a metropolitan area. In 2010, there was sufficient employment in the Great Lakes megapolitan cluster to support about 10.4 billion square feet of nonresidential space, including industrial, commercial, and institutional uses. Growth-related and replaced space will be roughly equivalent to 1.4 times the nonresidential space existing in 2010.
