Best way to compare city/metro size (cost, state, compared)

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by iAMtheVVALRUS

I've said this a lot on different threads, but (imo) Westborough, MA and Easton, MA (neither part of Boston's MSA) feel much more like Boston suburbs than Somersworth, NH or New Durham, NH (which ARE part of Boston's MSA).

So consider me firmly in the "radius from downtown" camp.

Compare Boston and Atlanta a 5 mile radius excludes a lot of what makes Atlanta Atlanta making Boston look larger. A 35 mile radius includes basically all of Atlanta but includes areas that really aren’t suburban Boston but Suburban Providence or Worcester.

MSA is good whatever county line take away they tend to give back somewhere else adding Hampton makes up for losing Easton in terms of absolute population.

[bfmx1]

Originally Posted by iAMtheVVALRUS

I've said this a lot on different threads, but (imo) Westborough, MA and Easton, MA (neither part of Boston's MSA) feel much more like Boston suburbs than Somersworth, NH or New Durham, NH (which ARE part of Boston's MSA).

So consider me firmly in the "radius from downtown" camp.

Yeah, when I want to move somewhere, I care alot more about what's within a 1 mile, 10 mile, 25 mile radius than I do whatever is included in the MSA.

[woxyroxme]

The city inset maps in the Rand McNally atlas is the most objective.

MSA is too inconsistent, extends too far for some cities and not far enough for others, it’s hardly an objective standard of comparison.

[Heel82]

MSAs are fine in the main, but the rules are arbitrary and they tend to be more problematic in areas that don’t fit the one-size-fits-all parameters. As was mentioned on the other thread, Winston’s MSA shrunk 60% in one day once due to clerical changes. Clerical changes that don’t necessarily make sense. There’s more economic ties between Forsyth and Guilford than some counties in the same MSA. MSA works best for primary cities built far enough away from other primary cities to avoid overlap. It works worst when two primary cities run smack dab into each other in a multi-nodal region.

[grega94]

urban area is my preferred way to compare cities, but considering they only get measured once every 10 years, they get outdated very quickly, so metro area's do a sufficient job. There are a few cases where it not ideal, for instances when you have several metro areas nearby who piggy back off of each other, and in those cases CSA works pretty well too. Some examples of that are SF-SJ, LA-Riverside, DC-Baltimore. Using a population in a certain radius is only useful if you want to compare how urban the cores are.

[Logicist027]

I think MSA is much better. For one reason is that the government takes a lot of statistics concerning MSA and we have a much more primitive way using that radius tool. All kinds of people use the census data on MSA to much better studies. We should stick with it since it's the best we have. Sometimes CSA works better in rare cases. (Research Triangle, Triad) But MSA in general is better.

[MrPiedmontTriad]

Urban Area

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by btownboss4

MSA is good whatever county line take away they tend to give back somewhere else adding Hampton makes up for losing Easton in terms of absolute population.

Easton has around 10,000 more people than Hampton.

And even IF the NH counties accounted for the population of suburbs shared with Worcester, Providence, Nashua, and Fitchburg/Leominster, that doesn’t change the fact that places like Mansfield and Milford feel more connected to Boston and the rest of the metro area than Dover, NH or Rochester, NH.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Dover. I just don’t think it should be in a discussion about the size of metro Boston. If anything, maybe Portsmouth should have its own MSA.

[bfmx1]

It looks like the comments lean towards using radius as a better measure to judge the vibe or population, going-ons of an area. But the poll leans towards MSA..

I surmise that people are not reading the OP and just clicking MSA without understanding the message.

I go back to Winston Salem, and there are many others, if you just look at the W/S MSA you're totally missing the fact that it's pretty much a north Charlotte suburb.. So the point is that living in W/S, you get TONS of benefits from being so close to a very large metro.

Contrast that with a city like Birmingham, AL. Much larger MSA population, but much smaller 50 mile radius population.

What's that say? You get into the boonies a lot faster in Birmingham on average. Said another way, the population decreases rapidly on average as you get further from the city center indicating not as much "stuff" going on overall.

Radius looks at the region as a whole..

[bfmx1]

Here's another arbitrary, albeit good measure of a region.. I.e., what is my access to things I want? Use whatever cool store or amenity you want:

From 5 miles high (similar to the radius measure), here's the number of locations in the frame:

WHOLE FOODS
Birmingham: 2
Winston Salem: 11

RUTH'S CHRIS STEAKHOUSE
Birmingham: 1
Winston Salem: 5

THEME PARKS (according to google)
Birmingham: 8
Winston Salem: 16

TRADER JOES:
Birmingham: 1
Winston Salem: 6

That's because, being close to Charlotte and Greensboro MUST be factored into the desirability and size of an area.

You can't just say Plano is a small town because there's only 250k people there. You'd be stupid to not consider the Dallas factor.. Or even the Frisco factor.

So, even though Birmingham's MSA is 2x, it appears that radius shows the truer picture if you're going to use amenities and population as a desirability scale.