2009 population estimates Detroit at 821,792

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by jmlowman

They aren't SMSAs, are they? I thought that was the standard of measurement of metropolitan areas.

Including Flint in Detroit's population? And Riverside in LA's? Those are distinct cities, about 60 miles away from the larger city.

In very large metros (and despite the freefall, Detroit is one of them, I expected them to drop the way Buffalo, St. Louis and Cleveland have, but didn't think they'd be down to 800K already), the gov't considers them to be giant "consolidated" areas broken up within as standard metros. This makes sense, LA's urbanization does stretch all the way out to Riverside and some people there commute to LA. I imagine less so Flint vs. Detroit, but still as much.

In NYC, I think they overdo this because they go beyond the TV/media market, which they do not do anywhere else. This is mainly because due to the extreme housing prices there, some people that far away really do commute to NYC or near it (the reason this doesn't happen with LA's definition is the only other major market as close to it as Philly and Hartford are to NYC is San Diego and Camp Pendleton acts as a great buffer/border to the two urbanized areas). The definition includes the Trenton, NJ and New Haven, CT areas, which get Philly and Hartford TV stations respectively and are much closer to those two cities.

Speaking of NYC, those estimates had it wrong on the OP. They were at 8.4 million in that article, not 8.2 million, that was their 2000 census number.