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Now THIS is a cool thread! I am gonna start with the two largest metros in my state (Charlotte and Raleigh).
Charlotte
725,000 city
1.8 million MSA
2.4 million CSA
Charlotte's MSA could change to included two counties that border Charlotte's home county. If this change occurs, Charlotte's 2010 MSA population would be 2 million even (8 counties with roughly 4,000 sq/mi of land)
Charlotte's CSA could merge with the Hickory NC MSA (located about 45 minutes NW of Charlotte's downtown). If this change occurs, Charlotte's 2010 CSA population would be 2.8 million (16 counties with roughly 8,000 sq/mi of land).
Raleigh
415,000 city
1.2 million MSA
1.8 million CSA
Raleigh's MSA could merge again with the Durham NC MSA. If this change occurs, Raleigh's MSA would have 1.8 million people (8 counties with 4,500 sq/mi of land).
Raleigh's CSA could add Wilson county NC (as well as a few others in Eastern NC). I would expect the CSA to gain 200,000 from this addition. If this happens, Raleigh's CSA could be 2 million even with nearly 10 or 11 counties (5,500 to 6,200 sq/mi of land total).
As far as I am concerned, NC has two MSA areas with over 2 million people. MANY cities in the Midwest and the South has TONS more land in their current MSAs than the larger cities of NC. For example, the MSA of Atlanta has over 8,000 sq/mi (however, Atlanta can back up such a large MSA). Smaller cities than Atlanta also have rather large MSA land areas. Nashville covers 5,700 sq/mi. Kansas City covers 8,000. Las Vegas covers 8,000. Compare that to the 3,100 sq/mi MSA of Charlotte and the 2,100 sq/mi MSA of Raleigh, and it is EASY to see that MSAs fail at telling just how many people live in a certain area. I would LOVE for folks to post the land area of some of these MSA/CSA regions on this thread. Posting land area will help explain a lot when it comes to certain cities appearing to be "bigger" on paper.
Those are roughly the current numbers, but I don't see a huge change between now and the census count.
I was going to say that your proper estimate seemed too high, but I just checked and it looks like the 2009 estimate already has Seattle at 200k. That's pretty exciting, I didn't know they had passed that mark.
So how do you think your city/metro will fare and tell us about possible border changes. Please provide your estimate for the following:
City:
MSA:
CSA(If applicable):
I'm really not into this whole census/stats stuff and I don't know how it works but I'll give it a go.
Portland
City: 565,000 (up from 2008 estimate of 557,000)
MSA: 2.25 million (up from 2.21 in 2008)
CSA: Will we get one? If I remember correctly, a CSA is defined as more than one MSA strung together for statistical purposes. I know that Salem (MSA 391,000) used to be considered part of Portland's metro and I think 15% of people would have to commute from Portland to Salem for them to be grouped together. I have no idea what the current % is. But if it does reach that number, either the MSA would climb to over 2.6 million or we would get a CSA with the same number...at least that's how I interpret it but I really don't know how it all works.
In other news, Oregon will be receiving a 6th congressional district after the census info comes out
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