Long Island provided great enchancements to the developement of megalopolis in that it helped to provide a good sheltered harbor area around the mouth of the Hudson river, and greatly increased the coastline available for ports and sea access. The land available on Long Island was also essential to the growth of the NYC region.
If you look at the urbanized area of Long Island spread through time the change is dramatic as shown below. The spread of population and outward growth from the core area of NYC and other cities in the BosWash after 1950 is astounding. For example in looking at Long Island alone, when my father grew up there in the 1950's was not very urbanized. The line on the map below where he, and I both grew up is the shift in color from 1970 to 1990 urbanization. So when he was growing up in the 50's it was very rural, still lots of farmland, as opposed to my childhood in the 70's and 80's the urbanization was spreading, and I got to grow up watching farms being sold off and housing put up instead. This goes along with the shift in the 1950's from the central city to suburbs.
The shift from rural use of the land to urban use, was in no small part a force of ecnomics, as areas urbanized the land value increased and farming became less profitable, as opposed to just selling the family farm for development.
This radical shift from city centers to suburbs was heavily impacted by one man, who if you grew up on Long Island you know because he made Long Island what is is today, and helped to spread megalopolis quickly throughout the Northeast. That man is Robert Moses, as far as the spread of population and creation of suburbs is concerned is probably the most important man in the 20th century.
Just who is Robert Moses and why do I consider him so important to the spread of megalopolis and Long Islands development? Robert Moses created 175 miles of parkways on Long Island according to the NY Times. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/nyregion/exhibition-traces-robert-moses-impact-on-long-island.html) Not to mention a total of 627 miles of highways and parkways in the greater NY area (http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20070313/rethinking-robert-moses)Moses)
He also is the man responsible for the creation of the following structures that you may know:
The Triborough Bridge, The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Throgs Neck Bridge, Bronk-Whitestone Bridge, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Moses played an integral role in developing many expressways around the NYC area: Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Staten Island Expressway, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, the Belt Parkway, the Laurelton Parkway, as well as helping to get Shea Stadium built, Lincoln Center, and having the United Nations headquarters built in NYC. Moses also helped to create parks and open areas for thousands of people, with his creation of Jones Beach, and hundreds of parks and playgrounds in the NYC metro area for people to use and enjoy.
Robert Moses also was responsible for large scale creation of public housing in NYC such as Stuyvesant Towns, Peter Cooper Village and Co-Op City.
His ultimate contribution was to the car culture, and suburban sprawl that is commonplace today in BosWash. Is it a coincidence that Robert Moses was influencial from the 1920's up until the 1970's in teh NYC/Long Island area and this is the same time frame as massive urban expansion in BosWash? There was a great book on Moses called The Power Broker, by Robert A. Caro that you can read if you are really interested in learning more about this great man. It won a Pulizter Prize, and I have read it.This half hour historical peice on Robert Moses only begins to scratch the surface but I found it interesting.
Overall the spread of Megalopolis over Long Island was sped up by Robert Moses, and this congestion and urban sprawl led to a great many problems on Long Island, as is common with other areas of BosWash. Pollution being one of the biggest, the waterways near Long Island became polluted with rain runoff contanimated with road pollutants such as rubber, oil and other car fluids, yard waste, feces. Much of Long Island did not have sewer systems rather they used cesspools, which leeched laundry detergents and other household items poured down the sink into local waterways.
Another problem associated with Megalopolis is government. You have many layers of governing bodies that often are in conflict with one another, all exerting levels of control over areas of Long Island. If you take my hometown of Sayville Long Island as an example, we have NY State, The Suffolk County Legislature, The Town of Islip, and then Sayville, if you add in the U.S. government that is at least 5 layers of governing bodies. Looking at the illustration below you can clearly see that in Suffolk county alone, there are 237 governing or jurisdictional units. Talk about a political nightmare and mess, it is truly a wonder anything ever gets done. You can note that Nassau County has 202, and Kings and Queens while technically located physically on Long Island are buroughs of NYC and are controlled by NYC.
Another problem associated with Megalopolis is government. You have many layers of governing bodies that often are in conflict with one another, all exerting levels of control over areas of Long Island. If you take my hometown of Sayville Long Island as an example, we have NY State, The Suffolk County Legislature, The Town of Islip, and then Sayville, if you add in the U.S. government that is at least 5 layers of governing bodies. Looking at the illustration below you can clearly see that in Suffolk county alone, there are 237 governing or jurisdictional units. Talk about a political nightmare and mess, it is truly a wonder anything ever gets done. You can note that Nassau County has 202, and Kings and Queens while technically located physically on Long Island are buroughs of NYC and are controlled by NYC.
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