So what if a collection of councils in, say, Greater Manchester come forward with concrete plans for a new conurbation-wide authority?
Home to some of the world's most polluted cities, China's newest conurbation will generate 60% less CO2 than a more conventional city of a similar size.
Between the three cities of the Lille-Tourcoing-Roubaix conurbation, a new town, Villeneuve d'Ascq, was built in the 1970s.
Lyons argues for new towns and expanded conurbations, encouraging smaller builders and establishing council-led "new homes corporations" with real powers to get developable land built upon.
The Local Government Commission for England presented draft recommendations, in December 1965, proposing a new county based on the conurbation surrounding and including Manchester, with nine most-purpose boroughs corresponding to the modern Greater Manchester boroughs (excluding Wigan).
The public notion of a new, eco-minded artistic and culinary conurbation in northwest Brooklyn may be less than a decade old, but it's already old hat on TV, where the latest show to exploit it is MTV's "I Just Want My Pants Back," beginning on Thursday.
By the beginning of the 20th century, salients of urban growth linked Manchester to the ring of cotton-manufacturing towns Bolton, Rochdale, and Oldham, for example that almost surround the city, and a new form of urban development, a conurbation, or metropolitan area, was evolving.
We say to the council why don't you switch your mindset – we've got a jewel here, why not celebrate it?" The 5,000 homes have cross-party support on Tory-run Medway council and councillors say there are no other large sites in the densely-populated conurbation of 250,000 people where new infrastructure can also be provided.
George Osborne has promoted a new scheme of "supermayors" covering major northern conurbations from Manchester and Leeds to Sheffield, and a cross county authority based in Exeter, as the first step in a plan to regenerate areas that have struggled to recover since the recession of 2009.
Salveson also speaks excitedly of plans for a new transport executive to unite the main northern conurbations.
No new major roads have been built in the Caracas conurbation since the 1970s, while in that time the number of cars in the area has risen from 200,000 to over 1.4m.
