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Yakima, WA. The real "metro" is essentially: Yakima (93,637) + Selah (8,087) + Union Gap (6,200). Total: 107,924 --- let's say 120k to include the various unincorporated areas around that core.
That's still less than half of the official metro population: 250,873. There are a lot of additional towns and Indian reservations in the county that are far removed from Yakima and probably have very few people commuting there. The downtown --- basically centered around a few blocks of one street --- hardly even feels like an MSA, let alone one the same size as Fargo, Sioux Falls, or Atlantic City.
I'd say one- or two-county MSAs --- where the rural areas aren't entirely farmland/mountains/desert and have a lot of independent small towns --- are often like this. Tulare County, CA (Visalia MSA, pop. 466k) is another example: this is Visalia's downtown. (Part of this is that Western metros typically developed later in the age of the automobile, but even by that standard, this really does not feel like a 466k MSA.)
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA sits at 4.7 million in the metro. No one would mistake either city's downtown to represent an area that large.
Riverside should not be considered an independent metro area. Statistically separated suburbs are not actual metropolitan areas. Referring to Riverside as a metro is a disservice to real metropolitan regions.
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA sits at 4.7 million in the metro. No one would mistake either city's downtown to represent an area that large.
The IE is probably 4 million people. The others live in other parts of the counties like the Temecula Valley, Victor Valley, and Coachella Valley that are in Riverside/San Bernardino counties but geographically separate from the IE.
The reason Riverside and San Bernardino cities don't look like the center of a 4 million metro is because they are not the center of the metro. LA is. If you look at a map, Riverside and San Bernardino are at the Eastern edge of development in the IE. Riverside and San Bernardino are edge cities that the LA metro suburbs grew into. Everybody but the census bureau realizes that.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Originally Posted by Texamichiforniasota
The IE is probably 4 million people. The others live in other parts of the counties like the Temecula Valley, Victor Valley, and Coachella Valley that are in Riverside/San Bernardino counties but geographically separate from the IE.
The reason Riverside and San Bernardino cities don't look like the center of a 4 million metro is because they are not the center of the metro. LA is. If you look at a map, Riverside and San Bernardino are at the Eastern edge of development in the IE. Riverside and San Bernardino are edge cities that the LA metro suburbs grew into. Everybody but the census bureau realizes that.
Exactly, I think it's r-word that the Census bureau considers the IE a separate metro area from LA when it's not
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