For Fun: PA's 3, 4, and 5 Metro Areas

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

If this debate is based on metro area populations, it is very hard to compare the smaller to medium size cities of PA because some of them are grouped together and are parts of larger metros while others are isolated and stand by themselves. For instance, Allentown is the third largest city in PA and the metro area seems very large in population numbers, but further analysis reveals that the metro boundaries for the Lehigh Valley make it hard to compare to a place like Erie. The Lehigh Valley includes Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton as well as parts of New Jersey that are also included in the NYC metro. In fact, Pike county PA is in the NYC MSA already and I have heard that Monroe county may be added soon also, which would mean that it would be in both the Lehigh Valley and NYC MSAs. On the contrary, Erie is on its own in northwestern PA and the Erie MSA is simply Erie and the rest of Erie county, which is mostly rural and sparsely populated. Eastern PA is much more connected by metro area than western PA and cities like Allentown, Reading, Lancaster, Harrisburg, and York are all relatively interconnected and close to other larger metro areas. I have discussed this before and it always surprises me when people try to compare and contrast cities based on population of metro areas because of how each metro area can be defined in an arbitrary manner.

The Census Bureau uses an internally consistent definition for a metropolitan statistical area and for a consolidated statistical area consisting of more than one metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area.

As I noted before, except in New England, where they're irrelevant, and Alaska, where they don't exist, the county is the basic building block of a metropolitan area, and no county can be in more than one metropolitan or consolidated statistical area. If A-B-E is part of the New York CSA, it would be understandable given the commuting patterns, but not even the New Jersey county would be part of the New York MSA unless the entire Lehigh Valley is part of it, in which case it would be called the Lehigh Valley Metropolitan Division in Census Bureau-speak. I do believe the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton MSA is part of the New York CSA.

Whether or not a county is placed within a metropolitan area, or a metropolitan area within a consolidated area, depends on the commuting patterns. If more than a certain percentage of a county's residents - the percentage isn't all that high, btw - commute to work within a county that's part of an existing metro, then it's attached to that metro unless it's an employment center for its own residents. In that latter case, it could be defined as its own metropolitan area if its population is large enough or if it receives a high level of inbound commuting from residents of surrounding counties not already part of another metro. In that latter case, some of those surrounding counties might be combined with it to form a metropolitan area.

Some examples of the fine distinctions:

• Mercer County, NJ, home to the state capital of Trenton, is its own metropolitan area, as the bulk of its residents work within its borders and its population is large enough. For most of the years that the Feds have used the current criteria for drawing metro and consolidated area boundaries, it's been part of the Philadelphia CSA. Since the 1990 Census, however, it's been part of the New York CSA. The commuting patterns to adjacent counties are almost evenly split between the two adjacent CSAs, but they'd shifted slightly in the 1980s to favor New York. In terms of media coverage, it remains in the Philadelphia orbit, however.
  
• Leavenworth County, Kan., was up until the 1990 census NOT part of the Kansas City, Mo.-Kan., metropolitan area despite bordering two of its five core counties. That's because most county residents worked at one of the county's two big employers: the Army base at Fort Leavenworth and Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. Sometime in the 1980s, however, the commuter flows between Leavenworth County and the metro area counties increased to the point where the county was added to the Kansas City MSA.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

That's about the total for Lackawanna and Luzerne counties. There is going to be a lot of households in semi rural areas. I live in Luzerne county, I can shoot a gun off my back porch and the only thing the neighbor is going to ask is to invite him over the next time.

As I said above, there is a further subunit the Census Bureau uses called the "urbanized area." This is that portion of a metropolitan area where the land is built up densely enough to qualify as urban (including suburban densities). Your home is most likely outside the urbanized area of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre MSA even though it's within its boundaries.

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

The Census Bureau uses an internally consistent definition for a metropolitan statistical area and for a consolidated statistical area consisting of more than one metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area.
As I noted before, except in New England, where they're irrelevant, and Alaska, where they don't exist, the county is the basic building block of a metropolitan area, and no county can be in more than one metropolitan or consolidated statistical area. If A-B-E is part of the New York CSA, it would be understandable given the commuting patterns, but not even the New Jersey county would be part of the New York MSA unless the entire Lehigh Valley is part of it, in which case it would be called the Lehigh Valley Metropolitan Division in Census Bureau-speak. I do believe the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton MSA is part of the New York CSA.

So Pike county PA is part of the Lehigh Valley CSA and the New York MSA? Are the commuting patterns measured from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)? If so I believe this survey has had recent sample size issues due to budget cutbacks and sampling less than 20,000 people to accurately represent the entire U.S. seems problematic to me.

[Gerania]

Subunit. I give up.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

As I said above, there is a further subunit the Census Bureau uses called the "urbanized area." This is that portion of a metropolitan area where the land is built up densely enough to qualify as urban (including suburban densities). Your home is most likely outside the urbanized area of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre MSA even though it's within its boundaries.

You cited a number of 500K+, what I'm saying is the total population of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties is 500K+. That contiguous area is probably closer to 400K.

I don't know how they are defining it but for the 400K you'd be able to throw a rock and hit the next house/building. That 400K is ringed by what I would call semi rural areas with lots 2+ acres, I can see my neighbors house but the woods go for miles behind my house.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

So Pike county PA is part of the Lehigh Valley CSA and the New York MSA? Are the commuting patterns measured from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)? If so I believe this survey has had recent sample size issues due to budget cutbacks and sampling less than 20,000 people to accurately represent the entire U.S. seems problematic to me.

Oops!

No.

Pike County is not part of the Lehigh Valley MSA, AFAIK; the counties that constitute it are Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon in PA and Warren in NJ.

Pike County IS in the New York MSA (Newark-Union Metropolitan Division).

No county can be part of two different MSAs or CSAs at once.

And the Lehigh Valley isn't the core of a CSA; if it's part of one of those at all, it's probably part of New York's. A CSA is made up of multiple MSAs that are interconnected by commuting patterns.

Originally Posted by thecoalman

You cited a number of 500K+, what I'm saying is the total population of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties is 500K+. That contiguous area is probably closer to 400K.

I don't know how they are defining it but for the 400K you'd be able to throw a rock and hit the next house/building. That 400K is ringed by what I would call semi rural areas with lots 2+ acres, I can see my neighbors house but the woods go for miles behind my house.

You're probably right that the urbanized area population of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre MSA is somewhere in the 400k-450k range. Sheesh, you can still find land I'd call rural in all three of the Pennsylvania collar counties surrounding Philadelphia City/County (well, maybe not Delaware).

[trackstar13]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Oops!

No.

Pike County is not part of the Lehigh Valley MSA, AFAIK; the counties that constitute it are Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon in PA and Warren in NJ.

Pike County IS in the New York MSA (Newark-Union Metropolitan Division).

No county can be part of two different MSAs or CSAs at once.

And the Lehigh Valley isn't the core of a CSA; if it's part of one of those at all, it's probably part of New York's. A CSA is made up of multiple MSAs that are interconnected by commuting patterns.



You're probably right that the urbanized area population of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre MSA is somewhere in the 400k-450k range. Sheesh, you can still find land I'd call rural in all three of the Pennsylvania collar counties surrounding Philadelphia City/County (well, maybe not Delaware).

What you are saying here is contradictory because you are saying that all the counties in the Lehigh Valley are part of the Lehigh Valley MSA and the NYC CSA.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by trackstar13

What you are saying here is contradictory because you are saying that all the counties in the Lehigh Valley are part of the Lehigh Valley MSA and the NYC CSA.

No, it's not. Think of these as a series of nested boxes:

A CSA is composed of two or more MSAs. (The "M" here can also stand for "micropolitan," the Census Bureau's newer category [created in 2003] that takes into account the fact that some cities with fewer than 50,000 residents also have suburbs and commutersheds.)

An MSA may have two or more Metropolitan Divisions.

Any one Metropolitan Division may lie in only one MSA, and no division can straddle two MSAs; at the same time, a county may lie in one Metropolitan Division or another but not two at the same time.

Similarly, the whole of an MSA is contained within one CSA - it too can't straddle two. So yes, if there's a commuting pattern from one county in the Lehigh Valley MSA to a county in one of the MSAs in the New York CSA to qualify it for inclusion, then the entire Lehigh Valley MSA would then lie within the New York CSA.

By the way, did you or someone else say that Monroe County, PA, may be added to the New York CSA? It's already part of it, and it's its own MSA - the East Stroudsburg, PA, MSA.

Interesting tidbit I found out in looking stuff up for this post: The Lancaster MSA (Lancaster County) is surrounded by counties that are in MSAs that are in turn component parts of CSAs (Philadelphia includes Reading, and Harrisburg-Carlisle, York-Lebanon and Gettysburg together form one), but it is itself part of no CSA. Must be the Amish and their penchant for reliance on one another.