Future of Boston &(MSA vs CSA) why so different? (Worcester: home, store)

[AlwaysByChance]

In case you don't know what I'm taking about already, let me clarify. An MSA stands for Metropolitan Statistical Area and CSA stands for Combined Statistical Area. These are the two ways the US government conducts a city population census. The MSA usually only measures a cities urban area, while a CSA measures more of the underlying regions population. I'm obsessed with population statistics. My mom recently got me a hat from Fenway Park when she saw the Red Sox play the Cubs. I loved it. I've been learning a lot about Boston lately. But, I've been puzzled by some of the things I learned. Boston has an MSA of roughly 4.7 million people, while its CSA is nearly 8.3 million people. I wonder why this is the case. What defines Greater Boston? Some things I read like to include all of New Englands 15+ million people, but New England is far to large and sparsely populated to be one large metro-area. Boston will Likely obtain a CSA of 10+ million in the next 25 or so years. And, Boston will officially become a global Megacity. Currently, only 37 cities have metro-areas of 10 million or more people. The US only has two megacities at the moment, (NYC - 24 million) and (LA - 19 million). It's possible that in the next quarter century or so, Chicago, Boston, San-Fran Bay Area, D.C.-Baltimore will all become Megacities. The city of Cologne, Germany only has roughly 1 million people. Yet, Cologne is part of the greater Rhine-Ruhr metro region of 11.5 million people. Boston appears to have massive metropolis potential. Does Boston offer everything that NYC offers, aside from intense sports rivalries?

[yellowstatus]

it depends

[CaseyB]

Boston is a small city itself with very densely populated surrounding suburbs (MSA?). The actual commuters come from all over eastern Massachusetts plus Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

[gf2020]

The Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area is basically all of Eastern Massachusetts (east of Worcester County) south to Cape Cod and north in to New Hampshire, including Rockingham and Strafford counties in NH.

The Combined Statistical Area adds Worcester County and Cape Cod in MA, all of Rhode Island, Windham County in Connecticut and adds Hillsborough and Belknap counties in NH.

People who grew up in the Boston area would likely define "Greater Boston" as just the region within the 495 beltway but for statistical purposes it includes a larger area.

It's conceivable that the CSA population could grow to 10 million in the next 25 years. That would mean an increase of about 0.5-1% per year which is right around the average annual growth of the past 25 years.

Chicagoland (apparently your home) is right at that 10 million CSA population now, so that's your third megacity in the US for now.

[charolastra00]

Massachusetts was settled early, so there are many well-developed towns and cities surrounding Boston itself. The landmass Boston sits on is tiny - under 90 square miles compared to NYC's 300 sq miles, Chicago's 234, LA's 500, or even Atlanta's 134. But all of those other towns and cities have filled in, with inner suburbs like Cambridge, Brookline, Somerville, and Medford being quite densely populated.

As others have noted, all of New England isn't part of the CSA but the relatively densely populated Eastern Mass is. While there are still some relatively ruralish areas in Eastern Mass, you're never much further than 15 minutes from a grocery store or town center.

People commute from Worcester, southern NH, and Rhode Island for work in Boston, so the CSA makes sense to me
there.

You can see a map on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston. As you can see, secondary cities like Nashua, Manchester, Worcester, and Providence (which all have suburbs of their own) are all part of the CSA but not the MSA.

[missionhill]

Even before all the urban sprawl of the decades since World War II ended, the region had many well developed towns and cities. Southern New England-- Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island--was home to the industrial revolution in this country and has dozens of small and medium size cities, many of them created specifically to harness water power for manufacturing and milling. Those are all still here plus all the former rural towns that have become burgeoning suburbs. Adds up to lots of people and lots of traffic. My sense of Chicago is of an empty prairie where urbanization spread from the Loop, rather than a constellation of smaller and larger cities for 100 miles in any direction that has been busy filling in the rural pockets with low-density sprawl.

[tysmith95]

I wouldn't even consider places like Cambridge/Somerville/Cheslea, etc suburbs. They are part of the urban core.

[tovarisch]

They are only called suburbs because they are not part of the actual city.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by tovarisch

They are only called suburbs because they are not part of the actual city.

They aren't even called suburbs.

[FCMA]

Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, etc definitely function as extensions of the urban core. Cambridge on its own is the 5th most populous city in Mass and Somerville the most densely populated in New England. In fact their densities are more than Boston itself. Hard to compare Boston area's early settlement pattern in tight stubbornly separate municipalities to later boomtown metropolises that grew fast and assimilated satellite turf for fun. Boston did it in the 1870s (Dorchester, Brighton, Charlestown etc) but I don't really see another spurt like that forthcoming.