MegaRegions

Part of my research focuses on changes in the Global business scene and its impact on strategy creation.

New research has emerged which could alter companies traditional approach to New Geography entry. Rather than nations, researchers suggest Megaregions or clusters of cities would drive how business is conducted worldwide.

To quote:
Megaregions — rather than nations — have become the natural units of the global economy. How is a megaregion defined? Tim Gulden at the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies has used nighttime satellite images of the earth to identify "contiguous lighted areas" that include at least one major metropolitan area. Examples? The Boston-New York-Washington corridor and the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou triangle. Megaregions are the lit-up regions that produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. 1.2 billion people — 18% of the global population — live in the world's 40 megaregions. Combined, they produce 66% of the world's economic activity and 86% of new patents.
Something I am happy about "…… Greater Singapore is a classic city-state, whose population of 6 million (nearly 2 million of whom are actually across the border in Malaysia) generates a GDP of more than $100 billion. It has “willingly and explicitly given up the trappings of nation states,” Kenichi Ohmae writes about the country, “in return for the relatively unfettered ability to tap into…the global economy.” (Ohmae, 1993). The Bangkok mega-region is home to 19 million people, producing $100 billion in economic output."

you can read more at:

www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf