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I think 50 miles (an hour driving) is excessive. 30 miles seems more manageable. MSA is a fine shorthand way in most cases, but the outliers are real and a radius works somewhat to compensate. On that note, Winston’s 30-mile radial population is slightly larger than Birmingham’s to the point I’d say they are roughly on a level-playing field for one to begin comparisons.
This doesn't matter and doesn't address the point. The point being tested here is what's a better measure of "what's around here that is accessible to me?" If an MSA stretches 100 miles, that doesn't really tell me much about how life will be in the single point of residence.
Radius simply measures everything that is close by, or within a fixed circle.
I go back to the Birmingham vs Winston Salem comparison in another thread.
Birmingham's MSA is 2x the size of W/S in both population and land area. How is that a comparable measure when I'm trying to figure out how life would be like there.
Hardly apples to apples.
Therefore, one could conclude that W/S, with double the population within a 50 mile radius has more commerce, economic activity, opportunity, amenities, jobs, etc etc.
The average commute tends to be in the 15-20 mile range and for day to day activities it’s probably an even smaller range. It does matter if the 40 mile radius of two places is the same but the distribution is different. Hartford at most radius’s is larger than Columbus but because a lot of those people are actually in cities that are 20-25 miles away rather than actually centered about Hartford it doesn’t feel remotely similar in size to Columbus.
Ok? It sounds like you kinda agree. Radius is not as flawed as you make it out to be.. It is diminished by physical constraints I know, but I WANT TO TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION TOO. Physical constraints and all.
Also, I DO WANT TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION OTHER CLOSE-BY METROS THAT ARE INCLUDED IN OTHER MSA'S. Why? Because my little area still benefits from it being only a few miles away.
Radius works pretty much all the time except when population density is vastly different or socioeconomics are vastly different.. How many people live within a given area? That is a decent judge of what's there, how vibrant it might be, how many people choose to stay there, what amenities it might offer etc.
I don't give two craps what someone said an MSA ought to be.
If you judge Winston Salem based on their MSA, you're looking at a small city and totally ignoring the influence of Greensboro, Charlotte etc. That's ridiculous.
So since I said both have flaws I now kinda agree with you? I guess that would be true? Your response just gave me flashbacks to an ex-girlfriend that loved to throw out loaded questions to me because she knew she’d be partially right, or should I say I’d be partially wrong, regardless of my answer.
Absolutely radius is as flawed as I make it out to be because of coastal cities. Seeing they start on/near the coast and work inland how could you possibly get an accurate radius? You say you want to take that and physical constraints into consideration, but yet you dismiss them both as no big deal. Tell me how a 20-50-100 mile radius around Seattle would be comparable to one around Dallas?
It’s obvious that you’re making such a big deal out of radius because it’s what works best for where you live. Would you feel so strongly about radius if the metro served your argument better? Seeing how defensive you’re getting whenever someone tries to suggest otherwise I tend to doubt it?
I’ll refer back to my first statement about them both being flawed, and you can’t make a blanket statement about one always being better. It’s gonna be a case by case example when comparing two places.
For the record since there wasn’t a neither/depends option I voted for metro. Despite its flaws, all in all it’ll likely give you a more accurate snapshot of the area, sorry it doesn’t work for your home town.
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.
You've lost me with this example. How would it be relevant to anyone in Winston how many Whole Foods or Trader Joe's there are in Charlotte and Greensboro? If you're suggesting that people's daily city life is within a certain radius, that one is too big.
I don’t understand the issue with coastal cities and radial populations. Our 3 largest urban areas are coastal cities, and 6 of our largest 10. The coast has long been draw for populations. Land is cheaper outside the coasts, that’s true. There’s a balancing act going on, but I don’t see any reason to think coastal cities would be larger if landlocked. Much of their appeal comes from the area in their radius that doesn’t have land. At the end of the day, a 30-mile or so radius around city center still gives a good base for comparison with other cities.
So since I said both have flaws I now kinda agree with you? I guess that would be true? Your response just gave me flashbacks to an ex-girlfriend that loved to throw out loaded questions to me because she knew she’d be partially right, or should I say I’d be partially wrong, regardless of my answer.
Absolutely radius is as flawed as I make it out to be because of coastal cities. Seeing they start on/near the coast and work inland how could you possibly get an accurate radius? You say you want to take that and physical constraints into consideration, but yet you dismiss them both as no big deal. Tell me how a 20-50-100 mile radius around Seattle would be comparable to one around Dallas?
It’s obvious that you’re making such a big deal out of radius because it’s what works best for where you live. Would you feel so strongly about radius if the metro served your argument better? Seeing how defensive you’re getting whenever someone tries to suggest otherwise I tend to doubt it?
I’ll refer back to my first statement about them both being flawed, and you can’t make a blanket statement about one always being better. It’s gonna be a case by case example when comparing two places.
For the record since there wasn’t a neither/depends option I voted for metro. Despite its flaws, all in all it’ll likely give you a more accurate snapshot of the area, sorry it doesn’t work for your home town.
Radius is not flawed for coastal cities. It takes water out of the equation, and rightfully so since its inhabitable. Again, the standard here is, how much stuff is reachable, drivable, accessible. If you live on the coast then your radius is only 180deg as opposed to potentially 360deg. That's part of it as there's nothing I can go do/see out in the water so radius takes it out of the equation by rendering a zero population there.
A 20/50/100 mile radius around Seattle vs Dallas is comparable, how's it not? Yes there's more water/dead space in Seattle but it still gives me an idea of what/how many are within a certain radius.
You've lost me with this example. How would it be relevant to anyone in Winston how many Whole Foods or Trader Joe's there are in Charlotte and Greensboro? If you're suggesting that people's daily city life is within a certain radius, that one is too big.
It's relevant because it shows you different options available. Suppose you were moving to the US from Cambodia and had to choose a place to live based on amenities/options within a specific circle, you would rank the one with more stuff, things to do, good options higher than another circle with less "stuff" would you not?
Obviously, all other things being equal which is rarely is.
But when I look at two areas that I'm unfamiliar with, a good place to start is by asking this question:
"What all can I find within x radius?"
If I'm a person who wants to live near nice things, take Whole Foods for example because they're generally in nicer areas, I'd like to know if how many of those different places might be available to look to live/hang out.
Lets supposed I'm looking to buy a BMW and I want to shop around. I'm going to prefer the radius's that provides the most BMW dealerships to visit.
Even if some of those dealerships are in the Charlotte MSA, they're still accessible to me to use, yet they would never show up within my MSA.
Logically, and most of the time, where there is more population, there are more amenities available which is why radius population provides a decent picture of what's usable to me.
MSAs contain different land masses and are not accurate when judging two different places.
Again, Birmingham AL's MSA is not comparable to Winston Salem because W/S benefits from the behemoth Charlotte nearby. Birmingham does not have a large metro nearby so it lacks many of the benefits that a being closer to a big city brings.
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