I wrote a Commentary in our Eventing Issue (Aug. 12, p. 4) about how our country’s burgeoning population is likely to affect the way we ride and take care of our horses in the next few decades. Denny Emerson picked up the tune for this week (p. 49), and I’d just finished editing his column when a headline on CNN/Money.com grabbed my attention: “The $25 Trillion Land Grab.” The article provided a projection of the future from a financial perspective that was just as alarming to me as the projections of any conservation or health organization.

And the blurb under the headline only increased my anxiety: “Ten megapolitans are poised for a boom that, by 2030, will dwarf America’s post-WWI build-out.” The authors were presenting the findings of a study done jointly by the Brookings Institute and Virginia Tech from the perspective of business executives who’d want to cash in on the boom.

In three centuries, a bit more than 300 million square feet of homes, offices, factories and other structures have been built in the United States. But in just the next 25 years, they project we’ll build 200 million more square feet-o house a population they project to increase by 70 million, a figure roughly the same as the non-profit conservation group Population Connection projects. The story adds, “Researchers estimate that the massive build-out will constitute a $25-trillion development market by 2030, more than twice the size of the U.S. economy today.”

The research team christened 10 areas “megapolitans,” a term that describes how cities in these regions will largely merge together into an indistinguishable zone, rather like the area from Boston to Washington looks now. And the numbers are overwhelming.

No. 1 in total population growth will be “Southland,” from Southern California to Las Vegas, which they project to accommodate another 8 million people. No surprise that South Florida is second, with 7.5 million, but the I-85 Corridor (Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham) is third with 7 million. Percentage-wise, the No. 1 gainer (or loser, depending on your perspective) is the Valley of the Sun (Arizona, New Mexico). It will add a relatively modest 3.9 million people—but it’s an 82 percent jump! The Valley of the Sun comes in second percentage-wise in new houses (up 54%), even though it ranks No. 10 in total new houses (940,000). No. 1 in new housing units will be the Atlantic Seaboard—3.4 million new houses, increasing 17 percent. The researchers predict that even the severely wounded Gulf Coast will increase by 3.8 million people (31%) by 2030.

The bottom line is that the researchers expect each of these 10 megapolitans to add at least 2.3 million people in 25 years. Two areas they don’t expect to explode are the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. That could be because of the weather there, but Denver and Salt Lake City have already gone through major housing booms in the ’80s and ’90s, causing a political and environmental backlash. Or it could be because, as Denny notes, most of us simply can’t live or work in remote areas of Montana or North Dakota.

And that’s really the issue here. While almost all of us horsepeople appreciate lush fields and woods, almost none of us can live outside of our culture, or avoid being affected by the things that affect the rest of the U.S. population. We must work to afford to keep our horses, and most types of work—even horse businesses—must be near where other people live to profit. The big question is, do these population forecasts mean that the days of riding across country from our back gate are really gone?