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I don't know about that post-COVID. It's much easier to do in 2022. I just met a guy last weekend that moved to DC from Philadelphia. He commutes back to Philadelphia once per week for work because he is hybrid. One of the reason's DC's populations is swelling is because there are many people that always wanted to move into DC but couldn't because their jobs were in other cities. They are now moving into the city from all over the country because they're either full-time telework or hybrid schedule. I'm sure the same thing is happening in every city.
The census bureau is going to struggle with their definitions moving forward because COVID has changed everything.
One of the paragraphs of mine you boldfaced acknowledged that there are NYC residents now moving to Philadelphia because they can telecommute. Plus they can enjoy a QOL and level of amenities and attractions that will satisfy them if they are urbanites and have more money on hand to enjoy all that because of the lower housing costs. (Brooklynites especially have been making Philadelphia their home in increasing numbers.)
But if your job still requires your physical presence at your worksite — and high-paid medical professionals largely fall into that category — the nearly 100 miles that separate Center City Philadelphia and Midtown Manhattan still prove too far a distance to commute practically. You can already have a 40-mile commute in many large metros, including both New York and Philadelphia, without leaving the boundaries of the MSA, or even the UA.
The long answer is still no. The reason why DC and Baltimore can be a CSA is that there are enough people in the "in between" area like Howard County that commutes both direction. 12% of the people that lives in HoCo commutes to MoCo, 8.1% to PGC, and 4.2% to DC proper. That's like 25% of commuting population already (Source: OnTheMap, 2019 data). AA County next door isn't as crazy but you still have ~10% commute to PGC, ~6% to MoCo, and ~4% to DC proper (Total ~20%).
Nowhere in Philly MSA nor NYC MSA came close to those number.
One of the paragraphs of mine you boldfaced acknowledged that there are NYC residents now moving to Philadelphia because they can telecommute. Plus they can enjoy a QOL and level of amenities and attractions that will satisfy them if they are urbanites and have more money on hand to enjoy all that because of the lower housing costs. (Brooklynites especially have been making Philadelphia their home in increasing numbers.)
But if your job still requires your physical presence at your worksite — and high-paid medical professionals largely fall into that category — the nearly 100 miles that separate Center City Philadelphia and Midtown Manhattan still prove too far a distance to commute practically. You can already have a 40-mile commute in many large metros, including both New York and Philadelphia, without leaving the boundaries of the MSA, or even the UA.
It only works for 100% telework employees or jobs that only require 1-day a week in the office. Obviously, if you have to go into the office more than that, it becomes inconvenient.
The real question is what does the census do with this?
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ion475
The short answer is no.
The long answer is still no. The reason why DC and Baltimore can be a CSA is that there are enough people in the "in between" area like Howard County that commutes both direction. 12% of the people that lives in HoCo commutes to MoCo, 8.1% to PGC, and 4.2% to DC proper. That's like 25% of commuting population already (Source: OnTheMap, 2019 data). AA County next door isn't as crazy but you still have ~10% commute to PGC, ~6% to MoCo, and ~4% to DC proper (Total ~20%).
Nowhere in Philly MSA nor NYC MSA came close to those number.
Metro DC and metro Baltimore actually merge and encroach upon each other’s reach that’s why. And it’s an actual blurred line in the middle of where one city’s influence immediately switches to the other city’s sphere of influence. They also are 50 miles closer than NY/Philly.
DC being the larger metro has a sphere of influence at minimum double the size of Baltimore. So looking at a map of commuter share it’s obvious to see the DC area influence encroaching Baltimore MSA counties. Howard County (all of it) belongs to Baltimore MSA, but as you can see there’s a clear blurred line of split activity happening from metro DC in the middle of Howard and parts of Anne Arundel. There’s no dark red in the image below until you actually reach Baltimore city or County, so metro DC is pulling from 30 plus miles away.
The mere style of development and lack of emphasis on county based synergy of activity in central NJ, and rather townships, along with the huge difference in distance in between will prevent these two (Philly and NY) from ever combining on any Census metric.
The long answer is still no. The reason why DC and Baltimore can be a CSA is that there are enough people in the "in between" area like Howard County that commutes both direction. 12% of the people that lives in HoCo commutes to MoCo, 8.1% to PGC, and 4.2% to DC proper. That's like 25% of commuting population already (Source: OnTheMap, 2019 data). AA County next door isn't as crazy but you still have ~10% commute to PGC, ~6% to MoCo, and ~4% to DC proper (Total ~20%).
Nowhere in Philly MSA nor NYC MSA came close to those number.
Been to Trenton lately?
Using the same Census Bureau tool, I get a 27% share for Mercer Countians commuting to work in counties in the New York CSA and 22% for Mercer Countians commuting to work in counties in the Philadelphia CSA (though I suspect that Philadelphia County is one of the "All Other Counties" in the table; since Essex County gets broken out, and it's about as far from Mercer County as Philadelphia is, I think it should be broken out as well).
That's a close to even split, a difference of about six percentage points (I rounded to the nearest whole number).
And that reflects a strong overlap between the New York and Philadelphia regional economies at the largest point of contact between the two (New Jersey Transit hands local train riders over to SEPTA at Trenton).
But — as I noted upthread — even though it's in the New York CSA, New York media cover Mercer County only to the extent that they cover New Jersey state government while Philadelphia media cover it as part of its metropolitan region (i.e., stories having nothing to do with NJ state government originating in Mercer County often make Philadelphia newspapers and newscasts).
I looked back at the wiki article and it included Hartford and New Haven (!!!!!). Guess that guy sees New York absorbing everything within 100 miles. Seems Scranton-Wilkes Barre is next lol.
Hartford and New Haven are both within the New York CSA. Philadelphia is the center of its own CSA. BTW, Pike County in the Poconos is also part of the New York CSA. The Lehigh Valley (Lehigh and Northampton counties — the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton MSA) was for a while but got removed from it.
Were the Census Bureau to follow the standard rules and combine the two into one single CSA, however, the resulting megacity would be more like Dallas-Fort Worth or Minneapolis-St. Paul or the San Francisco Bay Area in having multiple core cities rather than one core and one or more satellites. (The Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS CSA officially has three core cities, but the third one seems to function increasingly more like a satellite than like a core city, while the second grew from a bedroom suburb into an edge city.)
I have my issues with CSAs in general and the Wash-Balt CSA in particular. But, as other posters have noted DC and Baltimore's cores are dramatically closer (35-40 miles) than Philly's to NYCs (95-100 miles). Much if not all of Howard, Ann Arundel and even parts of Baltimore County are closer still. Really only Mercer County at the very edge of the NYC CSA is comparable.
More realistic questions are:
1) will Mercer County ever switch from the NYC to Philly CSA
2) will Howard or Ann Arundel ever switch to the DC MSA?
I suspect the questions to both are still no. But, in my opinion it makes the case for using something smaller than county level data to draw boundaries.
I saw this video not long ago and thought it was pretty cool, you can see philly and nyc at the same time from NJ: https://imgur.com/Cl55e2V
In terms of a CSA, probably won't happen and more so imo CSA's are meaningless beyond a few special cases.
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