Lewis Mumford (1961), 'The Myth of Megalopolis', in Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, London: Secker and Warburg, pp. 525-46.

The increase in the area of arable land, the improvement of agriculture, the spread of population, and the multiplication of cities have gone hand in hand throughout history: never more so than during the last century. Many countries are now entering an era when the urban population will not merely be greater than the rural population, but when the actual area occupied or pre-empted by urban growth will rival that devoted to cultivation. One of the signs of this change has been the increase in the number, area, and population of great cities. Megalopolis is fast becoming a universal form, and the dominant economy is a metropolitan economy, in which no effective enterprise is possible without a close tie to the big city.