Policy & Practice Comment: the strategic planning context for high-speed rail

摘要

Catherine Ross addresses the global planning challenge - how are we to manage large-scale urbanisation which is inexorably resulting in the emergence of mega-urban regions? Megaregions are now the main concentrations of population in the developed economies. In the UK, over 60% of the population is focused on two megaregions, sometimes referred to as the London Supernova and the Central Constellation of England (Wong et al., 2008), while in Europe, about 40% of the population is focused on the 'Pentagon' megaregion highlighted by Ross, which covers only 20% of the area but has about 60% of the economic output of Europe.