ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with changing environment created by revolutions in transportation and in governance, while the focus shifts from "the city" to "the metropolis". It presents the population of top twenty metropolitan areas, from 1860-2000A. A certain amount of theory provides the foundation of land economics and regional science. The author's visualization of central place theory has always been the cascade of hexagons employed in some of the work. A diligent search for data good enough to generalize the aspect of development policy was not successful, but study by competent analysts done in 1952 for the Augusta, Georgia, planning area provides useful data to use in exploration of the question. The chapter explains how much actual acreage will be required for houses and housing, and how much for all the other needs of an urban community, such as roads, commerce, industry, utilities, mass transportation, and institutions, is hard to estimate closely.
