The BostWash Corridor

The BostWash corridor extends along the seaboard and inland, including five major metropolitan areas (Boston, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington), with numerous small urban areas with indistinct functional boundaries between them. Overlapping influences of large metropolitan areas, their interrelatedness and their relationships with local, regional and global processes characterizes the urban corridor. With a population nearing 75 million, accounting for about 27% of the U.S. population, but occupying only 6.2% of its landmass, the significance of the corridor as a sphere of consumption is undisputable. The New York metropolitan statistical area alone, with its population of 21.2 million, accounts for 7.5% of the national population. High population densities, over 250 persons per square mile, on a conterminous segment of about 400 miles between Boston and Washington are also observed.