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The Southeast in my view (GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, TN, KY, WV, VA, NC, SC, N/Central FL) has 1 metro almost 6 million people, 1 metro almost 3 million people, 5 metros either just above or fast approaching 2 million people, and 8 metros/CSAs between 1 and 1.7 million people. That's a lot of cities, which is why there is a lot of talk of having an official Piedmont Atlantic megaregion and Florida megaregion. Atlanta is literally just glew to hold it all together, but it hardly dominates. I guess we're all coming to that concensus.
New England has Boston MSA at about 4.5 million, Providence MSA at about 1.6 million, Hartford CSA at about 1.3 million people, and that's it over 1 million people. I don't like considering Boston's CSA because it envelopes soooo much (Providence, RI to Manchester, NH on up into Maine and half of MA). If you did look at CSAs, in New England you would literally just have Boston and Hartford, with Boston clearly dominating half the land area and most of the population of the region.
1 out of every 6 Midwesterners live in Chicagoland. 1 out of every 12 Southerasterners (Southeast by US Census Bureau Definitions) lives in Greater Atlanta. 1 out of every 2 New Englander lives in Greater Boston. Now after chopping those states out from the Southeast (the ones mentioned above) now 1 out of every 9 Southersterner lives in Greater Atlanta.
Official as in what the US Census Bureau defines as "The American Southeast". Even if you want to chop a few states out of their definition like Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, & Arkansas.
That would still leave Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, West Virginia, & Alabama and combined they would have a population of: 57,283,564.
That population alone is larger than the entire region of the Northeast, and just a little bit smaller than The Midwest and not too much smaller than The West. Even in that case, I would pin Atlanta as third due to its economical advantage over its region being greatly diminished by other powerful cities in The Southeast, and the population range, and other factors.
It's nothing against Atlanta at all, its just that it IS in a more competitive and larger subregion than Boston is & that it is not as larger over the next competitor like the way Chicago is in terms of economy & and population.
1 out of every 6 Midwesterners live in Chicagoland. 1 out of every 12 Southerasterners (Southeast by US Census Bureau Definitions) lives in Greater Atlanta. 1 out of every 2 New Englander lives in Greater Boston. Now after chopping those states out from the Southeast (the ones mentioned above) now 1 out of every 9 Southersterner lives in Greater Atlanta.
Chicago is certainly the more important one even with other major cities the size of Chicago is the bond that holds that whole region together.
Boston on the other hand has no cities to hold together - it stands alone. Another interesting thing when thinking Boston is that even sports teams there are used for the entire region (New England Patriots).
Atlanta I do think covers a bigger area but not as significant as there are many other metros around.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,035,535 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by testa50
Dude, the very wikisource you cited said the Census Bureau has no official definition for southeast, which is true, based on cursory research.
I'm just pointing out that these regions are all pretty arbitrary.
I never used Wikipedia though, otherwise I would have cited their map. I looked up who defines the Southeast and various maps of it just in case I was using a wrong definition. This is what I used: http://www.maps.com/map.aspx?pid=9111
United States Map of the "American Southeast".
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsimms3
New England has Boston MSA at about 4.5 million, Providence MSA at about 1.6 million, Hartford CSA at about 1.3 million people, and that's it over 1 million people. I don't like considering Boston's CSA because it envelopes soooo much (Providence, RI to Manchester, NH on up into Maine and half of MA). If you did look at CSAs, in New England you would literally just have Boston and Hartford, with Boston clearly dominating half the land area and most of the population of the region.
That's not fair at all. I don't see how Boston CSA, which is 6,400 Square Miles (roughly) doesn't get to count but Atlanta CSA which is 8,800 Square Miles (roughly) gets to count?
This whole point with the, "land area" and "being compact" and whatever on City-Data needs to stop. Those people from Providence, Concord, and where ever else make it THEIR daily job to commute to the city of Boston for employment, they're as much apart of that region as the people from Gainesville, Alabama that do the same to Atlanta every morning for work.
New England Patriots is THEIR team, not just Boston's team.
Don't get me wrong, I think Atlanta IS a powerful city, no one can deny it being a Top 10 most powerful city in America but the bond Atlanta has with the Southeast is more blocked out with competition than the one Boston has with New England, where Boston makes up half of New England's influence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsimms3
The Southeast in my view (GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, TN, KY, WV, VA, NC, SC, N/Central FL) has 1 metro almost 6 million people, 1 metro almost 3 million people, 5 metros either just above or fast approaching 2 million people, and 8 metros/CSAs between 1 and 1.7 million people. That's a lot of cities, which is why there is a lot of talk of having an official Piedmont Atlantic megaregion and Florida megaregion. Atlanta is literally just glew to hold it all together, but it hardly dominates. I guess we're all coming to that concensus.
See we can all have "our definitions" of what things are all day but that wouldn't make this website City-Data.com it would make it Subjective-Data.com, the US Census Bureau defined the Southeast as such, and people still take an issue with it when it comes to disprove their points, and that is totally unfair.
I am more than positive we're being unfair here to the original poster. It's his thread and he should call the shots of what defines the region he's referring too, I think its only fair to leave it to him since its his thread. I'll ask him.
PDX_LAX, what states did you mean to include in "The Southeast"? The ones that the US Census Bureau includes or a mixed group of choices in mind?
New England has a strong cultural identity and was historically a major region, but now it is only a subregion. Its population (roughly 15 million) is about the size of the NYC metro area. And I say that as someone who loves New England, but we must be realistic about what it has become.
See we can all have "our definitions" of what things are all day but that wouldn't make this website City-Data.com it would make it Subjective-Data.com, the US Census Bureau defined the Southeast as such, and people still take an issue with it when it comes to disprove their points, and that is totally unfair.
Huh? You copied the population estimate straight from Wikipedia! It was right next to the number! Are you actually two people or something? How could you dispute that?
Also, the map linked totally disagrees with your list. Missouri? Delaware? Maryland? DC?
And because it still doesn't seem to be sinking in, there is no official definition of the southeast, at least as far as the Census Bureau is concerned. Linking to a website that sells maps doesn't change that.
Your own lack of consistency should be enough to show that these regions are highly subjective, no matter whose definitions you're using.
I basically used the US Census Bureau definition minus TX, OK, MD, and DE, and not South Florida. The OP clearly wanted us to determine what these areas meant on our own subjective terms. At this point I'm even more ready to put VA in with "Mid-Atlantic" than SE, but it's kind of on the fence. I also consider TX and OK to be split between SW and SE, two very different regions with different cultures and economies.
Also, I don't like using Atlanta's CSA either, but there isn't as much of a population difference between Atlanta's MSA and CSA as there is between Boston's MSA and CSA (which nearly doubles its size). I don't use CSAs except in rare occcasions and when I want to make sure a metro area really is larger than another one (if the MSA is larger than the CSA, I'm satisfied). A CSA to me would be like Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point, Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, LA-Riverside, Bay Area, Denver-Greeley, and Greenville-Spartanburg. Those I can see. I also use CSAs for my own little reference lists that I make on my own time. Many CSAs are literally only 50-100K more people than the MSAs.
I basically used the US Census Bureau definition minus TX, OK, MD, and DE, and not South Florida. The OP clearly wanted us to determine what these areas meant on our own subjective terms. At this point I'm even more ready to put VA in with "Mid-Atlantic" than SE, but it's kind of on the fence. I also consider TX and OK to be split between SW and SE, two very different regions with different cultures and economies.
Also, I don't like using Atlanta's CSA either, but there isn't as much of a population difference between Atlanta's MSA and CSA as there is between Boston's MSA and CSA (which nearly doubles its size). I don't use CSAs except in rare occcasions and when I want to make sure a metro area really is larger than another one (if the MSA is larger than the CSA, I'm satisfied). A CSA to me would be like Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point, Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem, LA-Riverside, Bay Area, Denver-Greeley, and Greenville-Spartanburg. Those I can see. I also use CSAs for my own little reference lists that I make on my own time. Many CSAs are literally only 50-100K more people than the MSAs.
Wait you're including Central and North Florida? Than Atlanta has no merit at all as it has 0 influence in Central Florida with Tampa's 4 million pop and Orlando's 2 million pop not even thinking about Atlanta. Its also ~475 miles between Central Florida and Atlanta.
To put that in perspective Nashville TN is ~475 miles from Chicago.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,035,535 times
Reputation: 4047
Quote:
Originally Posted by testa50
Huh? You copied the population estimate straight from Wikipedia! It was right next to the number! Are you actually two people or something? How could you dispute that?
Simple. Yes, I did use the population they used, there is no freakin way on Earth I am sitting there with a calculator in my hand adding up the populations of like multiple different states when essentially I can just copy + paste and get it over with.
And I knew for a fact that I wouldn't have to unless someone would take issue with the results of the poll and start mixing and taking states altogether out of the definition of the designated area. Look its not my thread, I'm not going to be rude to the original poster like everyone else here and get on his case saying "but you should have done Northeast versus Southeast versus Midwest" and stuff like that. I can cosign with him when I create threads I find it extremely rude when people take things out of context and derail my thread.
Which is why we should probably wait until he logs in to let us know what states he means by "Southeast" or not.
To your point of using Wikipedia, I use Wikipedia as only a secondary source, as in if it matches with what I can find from more than one other source that seems to have a designated idea I do use it but only if it can be checked for truth. So checking the population of the states it included in the Southeast, I just actually took the time out to check to see if the population I quoted would be a roundabout near figure to the number I copied and pasted earlier and I get the result number of: 78,385,623
So tell me, was Wikipedia wrong with its population numbers? Was it worth it to sit there and calculate it instead of just "copying & pasting" what Wikipedia used in that instance? Wikipedia gets its numbers from ACS- American Community Survery on a annual basis, Wikipedia GETS their information from the US Government, the US Census Bureau Department.
ACS is a website free to the public to use, it displays the "actual" information that the United States Government releases about population and whatnot to the general public. However it has also been known to skew some numbers up sometimes.
Okay, then by "your definition" what constitutes as the Southeast and why? Basically what I am asking since you live in Atlanta and its your region being discussed, what would YOU consider the Southeast? We can just set this thread around those definitions and carry on from there.
Last edited by DANNYY; 01-24-2011 at 05:16 PM..
Reason: Tweak.
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