I actually was planning on writing a user diary about this- I've run into one big issue recently looking at scale and proportion with my cities- while my scale for buildings, exits, etc has actually been somewhat accurate, I actually severely overestimated how big I was drawing my cities on the map. I think I may have forgotten that I was looking at a scale in kilometers instead of miles.
The Idea...
The northwestern coast of Freedemia is supposed to be home to most of the nation's population. I imagine it as a pretty big megalopolis of sorts, an endless band of metropolis from Ciudad Nature over the border down to the southernmost tip of the Quentinsburgh area.
The area @Portopolis pointed out in a user diary entry a couple days back on urban divisions between Haroldsborough and Fort Elwood is a place I hope to fill in with a very dense "suburb" of sorts, probably an extention of Fort Elwood (I'm thinking maybe a city by the name of Southfort). I'm still filling in density in Haroldsborough, Fort Elwood, and Laneston/Vandover (as well as in Quentinsburgh/Mathersboro) so it may be a while before that comes to fruition. Now, as to @Thunderbird's point in the comments, It would have to be far more dense than the Jersey side of the shore (I was thinking more like the denser parts of the Brooklyn/Queens side). I do imagine the northwestern Freedemian Coast as a megalopolis, hopefully in some ways including Ciudad Nature of the Autonomous Province of Nature just over the border.
The Problem...
Looking now, Quentinsburgh, a city that is supposed to have a population approaching 5 million, is smaller in size than somewhat sprawled but smalltownish Raleigh, NC, a city with only about 400,000 people. In order to make that work, I'd need an IMMENSE amount of density, probably more than Manhattan, way too much even for my global modern metropolis-megalopolis idea to work well.
I'm thinking I'm going to have to make the areas surrounding Quentinsburgh far more dense, especially the areas including and surrounding Gillepsie, Meisler, Horizon Springs, Berkeley Ridge, Caroll Hill, Franklin Hill, Hinespoint, Mathersboro, Haroldsborough, etc. I may even have to create density all the way out to Cobble Point, Dogwood and Fort Franklin. This wasn't part of my original plan at all. But it may be interesting to see how it eventually plays out. On a side note, I think my subway network will grow greatly and my commuter rail network will expand exponentially if I make the rest of those areas more dense as it appears I'm going to have to.
The entire northwestern coast is realistically going to need a big change. Laneston and Vandover are even worse in density right now, and it's going to have to be approached in a similar way.
Here are two images that show where I'm currently thinking I'm going to eventually end up going with this:
But how?
The thing is, I need that density and that increased land area in order for my idea to work properly. But at the same time, I also don't want to overdo it- in looking at how the expansion would work, I've already observed that a newly expanded Quentinsburgh would likely need another loop highway- and excessive highways have already become a huge issue in OGF.
That's not even mentioning how much of the suburbs I have made may have to be rethought, how much of the subway system I may have to reconsider, etc.
Can the rest of Freedemia balance out the urban coast?
What I'm thinking right now is that other than Trenchent, San Grande, Franklinsburgh, Lake Grander, and Graham City, most of Freedemia is much less urban than the northwestern coast. Maybe if I sort of "diet" the rest of the country, minimizing unnecessary roads, highways, cities, etc, it won't seem as much like overkill.
Any thoughts or feedback would be very helpful. I'm sort of stuck to a point here.