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I chose metro because in most cases that is the best measurement. Though it might be confusing when huge sparsely populated counties are added to the MSA just because a geographically small part has a high population. Like San Bernardino county for the Inland Empire or Washoe County for Reno.
Or #3, using aerial imagery at identical scale to compare contrasting cities. Google Maps works well for that. No calculations, no numerical data, no obtuse parameters, etc., but a simple visual. You can also get a feel for roads, buildings, parks, and trees with that approach, which the other ways will not have
That doesn't work on its own. Youd have to account for the population anyway in conjunction with the geographic size because the Chicago urbanized area is way bigger than the New York urbanized area because it's so sprawly. The Detroit urban area is alot bigger than Philadelphia's too.
Here's where MSA might fail I think, if you're next to a larger metro area, your MSA might not reach into it because it's considered part of another MSA, even though it's very close and by all standards, is pretty much the same metro.
This is the case with the Carson City metro. It should by all accounts be part of Reno's metro as alone it's only like 60,000 people while Reno, only 25 miles away center to center, has a metro of 450,000.
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.
It should be a mixture of both. Follow the defined metro boundaries as a guideline, but use your own discretion when seen fit.
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.
This makes me think of Mercer County New Jersey, where Trenton is located. It used to be part of Philly's MSA until within the last 20 years. Trenton's substantially closer to Philly than New York and has more ties to Philly. Does New York get Mercer County just because New York's bigger and what Yorky wants Yorky gets?
And Winston-Salem's MSA isn't comparable to Macon because it has gargantuan Atlanta right up the road.
We could do this all day, depending on how absurd you want to get.
I see your sarcasm, which is funny because you're right. Macon cannon be compared to Winston Salem for two reasons.
1. It's slightly further from the ATL core and the fastest expanding part of ATL which is North so there's much less connectivity between ATL/Macon and Charlotte/WS.
2. Macon does not benefit from the garantuan ATL clearly when you look at the population difference:
Clearly, Macon isn't benefiting much from ATL while Winston Salem is very much positively affected by it's big brother neighbors Charlotte and Greensboro.
I see your sarcasm, which is funny because you're right. Macon cannon be compared to Winston Salem for two reasons.
1. It's slightly further from the ATL core and the fastest expanding part of ATL which is North so there's much less connectivity between ATL/Macon and Charlotte/WS.
2. Macon does not benefit from the garantuan ATL clearly when you look at the population difference:
Then pick Athens or Columbus. Pick any small metro not far from a much much larger metro. Same concept and it doesn't make much sense. And I don't even know how you're getting those numbers in the first place.
Quote:
Clearly, Macon isn't benefiting much from ATL while Winston Salem is very much positively affected by it's big brother neighbors Charlotte and Greensboro.
How? Just by being close? That can be just as much of a disadvantage as an advantage and it can be legitimately argued that Charlotte's proximity to Winston-Salem has certainly not always worked in the latter's favor but you'd actually have to know something about it to know that and clearly you don't since you think everything within 20 minutes to 1 hour of Winston-Salem is "cool" (whatever that's even supposed to mean).
Radius cuts some cities short. Especially cores being coastal. Like oceans and our own Great Lakes. Making nearly half a radius water. Some cities can be twice as long in one direction as wide too. Though suburbs in the metro may or may not even that out. Add some cities on rivers that border states. A radius might have much less in the opposite side of that river, being in another state.
I'd say Urban Area (contigious area of development above a certain density) is superior to both MSA and radius. As others have pointed out, due to geography (mountains or bodies of water usually), not every city is circular shaped, so using a radius has some drawbacks. MSA doesn't tend to work well in the West, where LA and the Bay Area Urban Areas are broken up into 2 MSA's each. Since MSA's are based on counties, the big counties out west can also make it difficult to accurately compare things like population density.
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