Small City, Big Metro

[hudkina]

That's a cool way of doing it.

[codyg1985]

Anyone else think its odd that they include rural areas in MSA's? I know it's done based on commuting, but I feel like rural areas included in an MSA are almost like an oxymoron. Like Providence, for example, its metro includes almost all of RI, including very rural communities near the Connecticut border. Take them outta the picture and you leave out maybe a few thousand people but a huge amount of area, more accurately displaying the metro's density. Any thoughts?

The county is the easiest unit to deal with when it comes to defining metro areas. I absolutely agree about the oddity of lumping in rural areas into MSA definitions. I would define an MSA not by county, but by city. Each city that is directly adjacent to the central city would be included, and each city that is directly adjacent to a city defined in the previous definition would be included in the MSA. In other words, cities with contiguous city land that touches the central city would be included in the MSA.

In fact I think they shouldn't even refer to MSA to describe Metropolitan Statistical Area, but as Commuting Statistical Area - of course they will have to find a new name for the current CSA.

I like that idea. That could be a secondary definition that would define areas outside of the MSA whose definition I described above.

How long does it take you to do each metro, i.e. can you show us a bunch more maps??

I second that request.

[dimebag1980]

Hartford made the list because it is a city of 18 sq miles.

18 sq. miles? holy cow that's compact...

[Cotuit]

The county is the easiest unit to deal with when it comes to defining metro areas. I absolutely agree about the oddity of lumping in rural areas into MSA definitions. I would define an MSA not by county, but by city.

That's how it used to be done in New England, all of our census data had an asterisk next to it because we were by city/town while the rest of the country was by county. At the 2000 census they brought us in line with the rest of the country. Our metro areas were much more accurate before, New London, CT had a couple towns in SW RI, Providence had a few towns south of Worcester... Rural areas in RI and other states were not counted...

18 sq. miles? holy cow that's compact...

Providence is 18 square miles too.

[CtownMikey]

not to mention Providence's density is @ 9,690 Persons Per Square Mile.. including clowns!

[Cotuit]

including clowns!

Our clown was sent to New Jersey, remember, they took away his clown wig?

[Newnan]

This is just a fun goof off thing I did - so don't take it fully face value. But it does indeed indicate how big a difference there is between even Houston & Dallas and Atlanta.

If Houston & Dallas had the same corporate limit size as Atlanta did - I mean the exact city limits, this is what their population would be:

2000 Census

Houston

583668

Dallas

518216

Compared to Atlanta's

Atlanta

416559

wow, that's interesting

[monsoon]

18 sq. miles? holy cow that's compact...

Especially when you consider the Atlanta CSA covers more than 10,000 sq miles.

[Lady Celeste]

Especially when you consider the Atlanta CSA covers more than 10,000 sq miles.

But's it's MSA does not....am I right? Atlanta's MSA is over 4.7 million people so I guess we can concentrate on that. The sad thing perhaps is that for every one person that lives in the city of Atlanta, 9 live in the "suburbs".

Also, the city limits of Atlanta is only 131 sq mi. Still much larger than 18 sq mi but smaller than some cities whose MSAs are 1/4th the size.

Anyway, using CTown's density figure, if Atlanta has a pop density of 9,690 Persons Per Square Mile, it's population would be 1,269,390. Now that would be alot of people. Providence surely is very dense and in my estimation of urban, quite the model.

[monsoon]

But's it's MSA does not....am I right?

I have not calculated it recently but the difference between the MSA and CSA is about 4 counties. The MSA is somewhere between 6000 & 8000 sq miles.

[Phizzy]

Grand Rapids has a population of just 195,115 (2004), but the metro area has a population of 1,315,319 (2005). It's true, this is the Combined Statistical Area, but that is much more representative of the actual metro area than the Metropolitan Statistical Area. The OMB doesn't include Ottawa County (Holland-Grand Haven MSA) and Allegan County (Allegan MSA) in the Grand Rapids-Wyoming MSA when clearly the urban area of Grand Rapids extends into those counties. See map.