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No one standard measure of the boundaries of a city or its area of influence is perfect for providing a very accurate picture of the city's effective size.
KidPhilly, I've never before seen the term DMA. Could you fill me in on what the D stands for? I'm assuming that the MA stands for Market Area. I'm not confident offering thoughts about its value as a measure of a city's effective size without knowing what kind of market we're talking about.
With regard to Urban Area, this probably is the best measure of the population within the area densely populated enough that many would perceive this as the de facto physical boundaries of the city. UA still has its drawbacks in determining the level of activity in a city, and the population of its area of influence. For that you need to take into account the metro area population. The population of the entire metro area will affect the number of people using the principal city for various purposes. This in turn will affect the number of stores, amount of office space, total retail square footage, number of hospital beds, amount of infrastructure, and such other factors as affect how large a city looks, feels, and in terms of its functioning actually is. UA alone won't do this, because metro areas vary in the percentage of their populations lying outside the Urban Area.
No one number of the standard numbers used--MSA, CSA, UA, etc.--will tell everything you need to know. I wonder whether it would be possible for some brilliant urban geographer to come up with some measure that accounts for all factors in one number.
No one standard measure of the boundaries of a city or its area of influence is perfect for providing a very accurate picture of the city's effective size.
Quoted for truth!
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Originally Posted by ogre
KidPhilly, I've never before seen the term DMA. Could you fill me in on what the D stands for? I'm assuming that the MA stands for Market Area. I'm not confident offering thoughts about its value as a measure of a city's effective size without knowing what kind of market we're talking about.
DMAs (Designated Market Area) are a media sizing rank; basically to estimate the reach of a particular media market. So this is for all intents and purposes is a proximity population metric with some slight nuances today. They also use sociographic data to tie a region and its identity together. They used to say it included everyone as far as tv/radio signal would reach. Today they are little modified with the incorporation of the sociographic data piece. These are used as part of how media are priced - how many lives can one reach with an ad so to speak. The majority of DMAs are smaller in size than a MSA, meaning the MSAs typically include larger areas than do DMAs with a few notable exceptions (Philly/SF/Boston/NYC/LA). But basically these are the areas that media, news, advertisers use to figure out how many people live and are similar in an area (relate to same city and similar sociogrpahic regionality). So these are more mindset and proximity affiliation and not a municipal boundary criteria, also you have to be within about 30-40 miles to be included, outside of that you are deemed too far to be affiliated in the same market.
1 NYC 20.8 Million
2 LA 17.8 Million
3 Chicago 9.7 Million
4 Philadelphia 7.8 Million
5 SF/SJ/OAK 6.9 Million
6 DFW 6.7 Million
7 Boston 6.2 Million
8 DC 6.1 Million
9 Atlanta 6.1 Million
10 Houston 5.8 Million
To me this always seemed to make more sense as to the size of the regions/cities etc.
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Originally Posted by ogre
With regard to Urban Area, this probably is the best measure of the population within the area densely populated enough that many would perceive this as the de facto physical boundaries of the city. UA still has its drawbacks in determining the level of activity in a city, and the population of its area of influence. For that you need to take into account the metro area population. The population of the entire metro area will affect the number of people using the principal city for various purposes. This in turn will affect the number of stores, amount of office space, total retail square footage, number of hospital beds, amount of infrastructure, and such other factors as affect how large a city looks, feels, and in terms of its functioning actually is. UA alone won't do this, because metro areas vary in the percentage of their populations lying outside the Urban Area.
No one number of the standard numbers used--MSA, CSA, UA, etc.--will tell everything you need to know. I wonder whether it would be possible for some brilliant urban geographer to come up with some measure that accounts for all factors in one number.
There is no perfect measure but i do feel that UA (estimate of urban area) and DMA estimate of affiliated population within a certain distance may make most sense to me when sizing the developed area (UA) or the size of a region (DMA) - neither use any arbitrary boundary measures based on counties which vary widely in size accross the US.
Where are you getting your numbers for Atlanta? Here's the second link you provided in post 14:
as you can see all the numbers are from the same place. Census website.
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Check pages 17 and 28 in the link. According to this link Atlanta's MSA population increased from 4.1 to 4.2 after the change in criteria. [quote] Don't know what you are getting at
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Look closely at those same two pages and you'll find your answer for Boston as well. The number they list for the old definition was the CSA population. Under the new criteria they're listing the MSA population.
All figures were MSA
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Things get further complicated for Boston because up until a few years ago the metro area populations for cities in New England were calculated the way they now measure the New England City and Town Areas, using cities and towns as the components instead of counties, while now the metros in New England are defined the same way as those in the rest of the country. Therefore, Boston has a double twist in changes affecting its numbers.
Yes , I already mentioned that. That is how New York was measured too. That is why Metro LA was bigger than Metro NY
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According to the latest estimates Boston has actually grown quite a bit in the past ten years, in large part because the formerly independent Lowell and Portsmouth metros have been added to Boston's MSA, and Providence has been added to its CSA. In any case, going by the numbers for 2000, the main problem here seems to be that the link you're using for reference uses the CSA for the Boston metro population before the change in criteria, and the MSA after.
You misunderstood my question, I wanted to know know where the almost 2M drop in Boston population went. which areas accounted for the loss
[quote=ogre;16722969]No one standard measure of the boundaries of a city or its area of influence is perfect for providing a very accurate picture of the city's effective size. [quote] Very True
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KidPhilly, I've never before seen the term DMA. Could you fill me in on what the D stands for? I'm assuming that the MA stands for Market Area. I'm not confident offering thoughts about its value as a measure of a city's effective size without knowing what kind of market we're talking about.
Watch out for Paul, he is shifty with metrics that favor Philly
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With regard to Urban Area, this probably is the best measure of the population within the area densely populated enough that many would perceive this as the de facto physical boundaries of the city. UA still has its drawbacks in determining the level of activity in a city, and the population of its area of influence. For that you need to take into account the metro area population. The population of the entire metro area will affect the number of people using the principal city for various purposes. This in turn will affect the number of stores, amount of office space, total retail square footage, number of hospital beds, amount of infrastructure, and such other factors as affect how large a city looks, feels, and in terms of its functioning actually is. UA alone won't do this, because metro areas vary in the percentage of their populations lying outside the Urban Area.
No one number of the standard numbers used--MSA, CSA, UA, etc.--will tell everything you need to know. I wonder whether it would be possible for some brilliant urban geographer to come up with some measure that accounts for all factors in one number.
yeah, you do need a combination of metrics to properly define an area
like it or not, LA's primary metro was bigger than NY's
NY's combined metros (today's CSA's) was bigger.
NY has been the countries largest city for a long time, but there have been metro definitions where it has not been the largest.
It is kinda fun watching people go through this denial of seeing NY not in the top spot
Which was probably the point of the thread.
How was the population of "NYC Proper" 8 million yet 9 million?
DMAs (Designated Market Area) are a media sizing rank; basically to estimate the reach of a particular media market. So this is for all intents and purposes is a proximity population metric with some slight nuances today. They also use sociographic data to tie a region and its identity together. They used to say it included everyone as far as tv/radio signal would reach. Today they are little modified with the incorporation of the sociographic data piece. These are used as part of how media are priced - how many lives can one reach with an ad so to speak. The majority of DMAs are smaller in size than a MSA, meaning the MSAs typically include larger areas than do DMAs with a few notable exceptions (Philly/SF/Boston/NYC/LA). But basically these are the areas that media, news, advertisers use to figure out how many people live and are similar in an area (relate to same city and similar sociogrpahic regionality). So these are more mindset and proximity affiliation and not a municipal boundary criteria, also you have to be within about 30-40 miles to be included, outside of that you are deemed too far to be affiliated in the same market.
1 NYC 20.8 Million
2 LA 17.8 Million
3 Chicago 9.7 Million
4 Philadelphia 7.8 Million
5 SF/SJ/OAK 6.9 Million
6 DFW 6.7 Million
7 Boston 6.2 Million
8 DC 6.1 Million
9 Atlanta 6.1 Million
10 Houston 5.8 Million
To me this always seemed to make more sense as to the size of the regions/cities etc.
There is no perfect measure but i do feel that UA (estimate of urban area) and DMA estimate of affiliated population within a certain distance may make most sense to me when sizing the developed area (UA) or the size of a region (DMA) - neither use any arbitrary boundary measures based on counties which vary widely in size accross the US.
Thanks for the info on DMA's. Given that they try to determine some degree of local identity, it sounds as if this could be a good measure of where the boundaries of "the city" effictively lie in the sense of social integration. This together with UA, which might more or less identify the area densely populated enough to be "the city" in a physical sense, could make an interesting combination.
I do think that MSA population, and maybe CSA pop. (may depend on the CSA) still need to be considered in determining how "big" a city is in an effective sense, how much influence it wields, how large the city is going to look and feel to those driving its roads and walking its streets. The larger the metro area, the more people using the city. Hence, the more "stuff" the city will have to serve that population.
It's the link you provided in post 14. Correction on the page numbers I listed earlier. They are pages 17 and 26, not 28.
Regarding your statement that you don't know what I'm getting at with the figures for Atlanta, they show the MSA population in 2000 increasing from 4.1 to 4.2 with the change to the new definitions, so I'm pointing out that I don't see why you're describing Atlanta as one of the "big losers" under the new definitions, since it actually gained slightly.
Regarding Boston, from page 17 in that link:
Old ranking: ranked 4th; "Boston, MA-NH NECMA" 6.058 mil.
New ranking: ranked 10th; "Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH" 4.391 mil.
The first, "NECMA," is the abbreviation for the term New England Consolidated Metropolitan Area, or something like that. It's the New England City & Town Area equivalent of the CSA. The second does not specify the type of metro area, but I can tell you that a list of primary cities including only Boston, Cambridge, and Quincy, without also including at least Worcester, is all a very local area close to Boston. This is the MSA.
To simplify things on this one I'll tell you that I live in the Boston area, so I'm especially interested in Boston's numbers, therefore am familiar with the area's approximate numbers. Because of that, I know that on page 17 in the link, the number for the new rankings is the MSA, and that listed for the old rankings is the CSA. Boston's MSA population estimate is slightly larger now, but it has been, and according to estimates remains, in the mid 4 millions since the Lowell and Portsmouth MSA's were absorbed into Boston.
Most of the latest estimates have Boston's CSA population in the mid 7 millions at present, since Providence was added a few years ago. However, that 6 millionish figure looks about right for the CSA population ten years ago. The MSA has never had a population as large as 6 mil. I know Boston's numbers. This is how I know that, even though neither the term MSA nor the term CSA is specified in the new rankings on p. 17, 4.3 was the MSA population, but the old ranking is using the CSA population of ten years ago. The answer to your question is that nothing was removed from Boston's MSA due to the change of definition. The difference in populations you're seeing between the old and new rankings is simply the difference between the CSA and MSA populations in 2000.
By the way, I'm not concerned about it if you want to accuse Paul of using measures that might inflate Philly's numbers. I don't really care even if he actually is doing this. I find his posts informative, and I participate in threads like this out of interest in the subject (I love this stuff), not because I give a rat's . . . about getting into a mine (my city) is bigger than yours peeing contest.
It's the link you provided in post 14. Correction on the page numbers I listed earlier. They are pages 17 and 26, not 28.
Regarding your statement that you don't know what I'm getting at with the figures for Atlanta, they show the MSA population in 2000 increasing from 4.1 to 4.2 with the change to the new definitions, so I'm pointing out that I don't see why you're describing Atlanta as one of the "big losers" under the new definitions, since it actually gained slightly.
Losers dropped in ranking (Boston and Atl), the Winners moved up ( NY, DFW).
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Regarding Boston, from page 17 in that link:
Old ranking: ranked 4th; "Boston, MA-NH NECMA" 6.058 mil.
New ranking: ranked 10th; "Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH" 4.391 mil.
The first, "NECMA," is the abbreviation for the term New England Consolidated Metropolitan Area, or something like that. It's the New England City & Town Area equivalent of the CSA. The second does not specify the type of metro area, but I can tell you that a list of primary cities including only Boston, Cambridge, and Quincy, without also including at least Worcester, is all a very local area close to Boston. This is the MSA.
To simplify things on this one I'll tell you that I live in the Boston area, so I'm especially interested in Boston's numbers, therefore am familiar with the area's approximate numbers. Because of that, I know that on page 17 in the link, the number for the new rankings is the MSA, and that listed for the old rankings is the CSA. Boston's MSA population estimate is slightly larger now, but it has been, and according to estimates remains, in the mid 4 millions since the Lowell and Portsmouth MSA's were absorbed into Boston.
Most of the latest estimates have Boston's CSA population in the mid 7 millions at present, since Providence was added a few years ago. However, that 6 millionish figure looks about right for the CSA population ten years ago. The MSA has never had a population as large as 6 mil. I know Boston's numbers. This is how I know that, even though neither the term MSA nor the term CSA is specified in the new rankings on p. 17, 4.3 was the MSA population, but the old ranking is using the CSA population of ten years ago. The answer to your question is that nothing was removed from Boston's MSA due to the change of definition. The difference in populations you're seeing between the old and new rankings is simply the difference between the CSA and MSA populations in 2000.
okay, thanks for answering the question.
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By the way, I'm not concerned about it if you want to accuse Paul of using measures that might inflate Philly's numbers. I don't really care even if he actually is doing this. I find his posts informative, and I participate in threads like this out of interest in the subject (I love this stuff), not because I give a rat's . . . about getting into a mine (my city) is bigger than yours peeing contest.
Paul and I mess around all the time on here. He has a secret thing for me. But yes, he favors the metrics that put Philly in a better light.
Losers dropped in ranking (Boston and Atl), the Winners moved up ( NY, DFW).
okay, thanks for answering the question.
Paul and I mess around all the time on here. He has a secret thing for me. But yes, he favors the metrics that put Philly in a better light.
Shhhh Dont tell anyone then it's not a secret
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