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Is this just a numeric exercise or is there some relevant point you are trying to make? It sounds a lot like a thread you started awhile back about how many people live within a certain radius of certain cities.
I have no problem with you presenting a statistical conundrum, but based on many of your past contentions I'm just wondering if there is more to it (like some racial component, perhaps?).
I'm not sure why the OP wants Detroit to be recognized as fifth or whatever, but he's welcome to it as far as I'm concerned. To me, once a metro reaches
several million, there's little advantage to being recognized as being bigger than another one. What IS important, though, is for an area to keep growing and thriving. And it seems to me that the Detroit metro hasn't been doing much of that. I hope Detroit can turn it around.
You missed my point again with the MSA rankings. Let me ask you this: "What is the official US uemployment rate"? If you answered 8.3% you would be correct. However, the REAL unemployment rate is much higher than that. The government has a FORMULA for counting the umemployed that, at times, is deceptive. The government ONLY counts a person as unemployed IF they have been seeking work in the past month. Now...that might make sense during times of full employment....meaning that there are jobs if people just looked for them and hence you should not be considered unemployed if you are not looking. However, it times of massive job losses and more people looking for work than work, with some getting so discouraged that they have stopped looking.....they are really unemployed and the government should count them.
I completely agree with you regarding unemployment, and nope, once again, I do see your point.
The problem is you're not seeing mine.
If you want Detroit's MSA to be as large as Houston's, more people from further away will have to commute into Detroit. Want the solution? As I said before, repeal Michigan's Home Rule Charter and expand Detroit about 400 miles (which will effectively include all the pseudo-employment centers in Detroit).
I'm not sure why the OP wants Detroit to be recognized as fifth or whatever, but he's welcome to it as far as I'm concerned. To me, once a metro reaches
several million, there's little advantage to being recognized as being bigger than another one. What IS important, though, is for an area to keep growing and thriving. And it seems to me that the Detroit metro hasn't been doing much of that. I hope Detroit can turn it around.
Hi garxhap.
You're exactly right with the bolded.
As for the rest of your post, I'm not sure I agree. One advantage to being bigger than another is it increases or, in the case of cities such as Chicago and New York, maintains your relevance on a national and international level (as a general rule in the 1st world, more people = more votes and more money available to spend = stronger economic power and stronger/better political representation). The problem is Detroit isn't even keeping up with other cities in terms of growth, thus it's gradually losing its relevance (even despite the fact that it may have several million people). For example, back in 1952, Detroit when it produced by far the most economic wealth of any place in Michigan and it had 2 million people (it made up nearly 1/3 of the state's population), the city could literally run laps around the state and pretty much demand whatever it wanted (just like Chicago does in Illinois). Fast forward to 2012, as the wealth and people have left Detroit, the city can't even convince the state to give it a measely 3-mile choo-choo train.
But really, we here in Detroit have much more important things to worry about than why our MSA is not as large as Houston (especially when the dynamics at play are COMPLETELY different).
Last edited by 313Weather; 03-08-2012 at 08:16 PM..
As for the rest of your post, I'm not sure I agree. One advantage to being bigger than another is it increases or, in the case of cities such as Chicago and New York, maintains your relevance on a national and international level (as a general rule in the 1st world, more people = more votes and more money available to spend = stronger economic power and stronger/better political representation). The problem is Detroit isn't even keeping up with other cities in terms of growth, thus it's gradually losing its relevance (even despite the fact that it may have several million people). For example, back in 1952, Detroit when it produced by far the most economic wealth of any place in Michigan and it had 2 million people (it made up nearly 1/3 of the state's population), the city could literally run laps around the state and pretty much demand whatever it wanted (just like Chicago does in Illinois). Fast forward to 2012, as the wealth and people have left Detroit, the city can't even convince the state to give it a measely 3-mile choo-choo train.
But really, we here in Detroit have much more important things to worry about than why our MSA is not as large as Houston (especially when the dynamics at play are COMPLETELY different).
This is a good post. I will just like to say that people fail to see the big picture. When people were fleeing Detroit and businesses were divesting from the city decades ago none really anticipated that it would hurt the entire region by allowing Detroit to crumble. The heart of a region is in its core city and when the heart becomes challenged the heath of the entire region suffers.
Rankings mean a lot. Its like saying that college rankings mean nothing. Does the University of Michigan benefit by being ranked one of the top public universities in the nation? Sure it does. That helps it attract the best and the brightest students. Does it matter that Michigan State basketball is ranked on of the top basketball programs? Sure it does, it helps them attract the best ball players. Rankings matter and that is why evertything is ranked. Human life is about rank.
The Detroit area shot itself in the foot by allowing its core city to crumble....thinking that the suburban area could exist independent and not impacted by the problems of the city when the truth is that it has and is costing the whole region. Fortunately some prominent people in the business community recognizes this and is reinvesting into the core.
Rankings mean a lot. Its like saying that college rankings mean nothing. Does the University of Michigan benefit by being ranked one of the top public universities in the nation? Sure it does. That helps it attract the best and the brightest students. Does it matter that Michigan State basketball is ranked on of the top basketball programs? Sure it does, it helps them attract the best ball players. Rankings matter and that is why evertything is ranked. Human life is about rank.
But that doesn't mean that just because a school is bigger that it is better.
But that doesn't mean that just because a school is bigger that it is better.
Thats true but people tend to be attracted to large metro areas. Immigrants tend gravitate towards the larger metro areas because these areas get the most name recognition (not all because of size, but size does seem to matter). Immigrants are really driving growth and immigrants seem attracted to large metros....providing they have jobs. When Detroit's economy does recover, and it is and will, Detroit will find itself at a competitive disadvantage.
Thats true but people tend to be attracted to large metro areas. Immigrants tend gravitate towards the larger metro areas because these areas get the most name recognition (not all because of size, but size does seem to matter). Immigrants are really driving growth and immigrants seem attracted to large metros....providing they have jobs. When Detroit's economy does recover, and it is and will, Detroit will find itself at a competitive disadvantage.
Key words. If there are no jobs, then immigrants become a burden (although most of them are smart enough not to come where there are no jobs).
Personally, I prefer smaller cities. I see no great advantage to living in a metropolis. As long as we have one of everything that a big city has (except the tourist traps), I'm happy. I don't need to have hundreds of McDonald's and Walmarts within driving distance of where I live. And I certainly don't need to have millions of strangers.
I just had a lively discussion with a few debaters about the relative size and importance of the Detroit area compared to others. They were using metropolitan population rankings to argue that the Detroit area is not one of the top ten areas of the country, in any respect, not even population. However, the Detroit area or SE Michigan polarization actually works against it in the establishment of the metropolitan areas footprint.
Metropolitan Detroit’s population is listed at 4.2 million people and people just take that and run with it not knowing the formulas used to calculate population, which is not a pure population count. Areas like Houston, Dallas and Atlanta are all listed ahead of Detroit with Metro populations of over 5 million people. However, these areas are almost double the land area used to define metro Detroit and the primary reason that that these areas are given a larger geographical footprint is due commuting patterns.
In order for outlying areas or counties to be counted in as part of the metro area, there has to be at least a 25% commute from the outlying counties into the core or Principle County where the primary city is located, or something close to that. The bottom line is that commuting patterns and percentages determine the size of a metro areas footprint, to a large degree. Detroit has a small footprint partly because of its anemic core in regards to jobs. Places like Houston, Dallas and Atlanta have massive skylines many of which are office buildings that house thousands of workers and hence there is a strong job base in the core that creates the need to commute from far away to get to these jobs.
Detroit is also fringed by satellite cities that offer that have its own gravity the pulls people in outlying areas to those cities. There is Ann Arbor, Flint and Toledo Ohio. One might say that those areas are too far away to be considered part of the Detroit area, but keep in mind that about 20% of metropolitan Atlanta’s 5.2 million residents live 50 miles or more from the city center. That’s about a million people. Indeed, if one were to superimpose that land area of what is defined as metro Atlanta, over the Detroit area, there would be over 6 million people in the Detroit area compared to the 5.2 million that exists in the same area called metro Atlanta.
Hence, Detroit only falls out the top ten in national rankings, because of commuting patterns in the area. It’s not that many of these other areas down south are more populated than Detroit, it’s that those places are isolated areas, without other population centers nearby, with a strong core central business district that people commute to from afar. Detroit CBD is too week to create the type of gravity that pulls people in large numbers from far out exurban areas, which in turn creates high commute percentages to the core county and principle city. As a result of Detroit weak downtown and the decline of the core city, the whole area has lost stature and prominence in national rankings.
Outstanding post and very true! You are a natural at geographic analysis!
There are a LOT of people within 60 miles of Detroit. When you look at that, the SE MI population with adjacent Windor, Toledo . . . I would say it is the second biggest population cluster in between the coasts after Chicago. And even then the population within 60 miles (about 6 million) is already almost 2/3 of the population within 60 miles of Chicago (9-10 million).
Thats true but people tend to be attracted to large metro areas. Immigrants tend gravitate towards the larger metro areas because these areas get the most name recognition (not all because of size, but size does seem to matter). Immigrants are really driving growth and immigrants seem attracted to large metros....providing they have jobs. When Detroit's economy does recover, and it is and will, Detroit will find itself at a competitive disadvantage.
Metro Detroit may not be on the level of NYC, LA, or Miami when it comes to immigrant population, but I think it can still hold its own in terms of ethnic diversity.
I think considering metro Detroits economic swings, it still retains the capital of Arab-America. Arabs and Chaldeans/Assyrians. Also, the eastern European population maybe not be on the level of Chicago and other cities, but I know there are thriving population of Albanians.
Taken individually I would say east Dearborn (Muslim Arab), Hamtramck (Traditionally Polish and some Ukrainian, now more Bangladeshi, Albanian, Yemeni), and SW Detroit (mostly Mexican as well as AA, white, and mid-east) can stand on their own as far as urban immigrant hoods.
Detroit may not be known as being a major "ethnic neighborhood", but I think Greektown (touristy more than anything), Corktown (gentrifying with Irish heritage), along with the aforementioned SW Detroit, east Dearborn, and Hamtramck, I think there is a fair amount to keep one interested if they are interested in ethnic heritage and neighborhoods.
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