Big Metro areas with low cost of housing and apartment rentals (Million plus metro)

[Vatnos]

Originally Posted by RaleighRob

The Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill), NC, metro has a million population now. Most folks say compared to other big cities, it's affordable. Although some of the individual towns are cheaper than others. (Durham cheaper than Chapel Hill, for example.)

Raleigh-Cary MSA is 1.188 million.
Raleigh-Durham-Cary CSA is 1.998 million.

So really it's more like two million since the CSA estimate was from 2012. I suspect the hundred people needed to put us over are here by now.

[calilovin]

Originally Posted by Vatnos

Raleigh-Cary MSA is 1.188 million.
Raleigh-Durham-Cary CSA is 1.998 million.

So really it's more like two million since the CSA estimate was from 2012. I suspect the hundred people needed to put us over are here by now.

Well going by specifics and the OP's original post, CSA population doesn't matter.

[Vatnos]

Originally Posted by calilovin

Well going by specifics and the OP's original post, CSA population doesn't matter.

I just said Raleigh-Cary was 1.2 million. Your point is moot.

But since this came up, the Census Bureau is not very consistent with its applications of metro boundaries. Many cities have extremely liberal CSA estimates that seem rather subjective, while a few places have pointless MSA estimates that were arbitrarily split between two cores that are clearly tied. Raleigh-Durham, for instance, was considered an MSA until recently.

Why was it split when Dallas-Fort Worth and Minneapolis-St Paul were kept intact? Not sure exactly; more commuting happens between Wake and Durham counties than any other two counties in the region. It could be a long time before they fix this error though, so until then only the CSA acknowledges the true metro.