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Casa Grande will never truly link with Greater Phoenix because of the Gila River Pima Indian Reservation being between them
But what would occur if Pinal County communities like Maricopa, San Tan Valley, the Pinal part of Queen Creek, and Florence continue to grow with Maricopa County commuters? What about Apache Junction?
People in those places aren't going to commute to Tucson, and may even be less likely to commute within Pinal, no?
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Originally Posted by Count David
But what would occur if Pinal County communities like Maricopa, San Tan Valley, the Pinal part of Queen Creek, and Florence continue to grow with Maricopa County commuters? What about Apache Junction?
People in those places aren't going to commute to Tucson, and may even be less likely to commute within Pinal, no?
Perhaps more jobs will appear in Casa Grande and Maricopa. I would never truly consider central or southern Pinal county part of Greater Phoenix as "the Res" will always separate them. From Chandler to Casa Grande is 25 miles of undeveloped desert and most likely always will be
Regarding the Inland Empire, yes, it's silly to include wide swaths of desert in the LA CSA. But there are tons of commuters from Riverside into Orange, and from San Bernardino into Los Angeles. There are a few San Diego County commuters in far SW Riverside County, but for the most part (through the length of the county), commuters are going to LA, Orange, San Bernardino, or are staying in Riverside, and those that commute to San Diego or anywhere else are easily outnumbered by those who commute to LA, Orange, or San Bernardino. There are no outside of Riverside/San Bernardino County commute points in the Coachella Valley or along the border with AZ.
In the case of San Bernardino, commuters are going to Los Angeles, or are largely staying within San Bernardino. The border with Riverside on the western end is highly urbanized, so people are crossing that line for every reason all day long (hence the IE counties being joined). People in the Victor Valley (San Bernardino County) are known for marathon commutes to as far away as Orange or non-Antelope Valley Los Angeles County, but if they commute, a good percentage of them aren't leaving San Bernardino. People in Barstow or Baker are unlikely to commute anywhere. Tiny Trona in the NW corner has its share of commuters to Kern County (but not enough to amount to anything in the grand scheme), and while Needles surely has its share of Laughlin/Bullhead commuters, it's not going to amount to much. And there's nowhere to commute from in San Bernardino if one wanted to work in Vegas.
The census has an alternative called the Urbanized Area or the Urban Cluster. However, these have strict requirements of densely populated blocks, which fracture many contiguous "effective" urban areas....so those too are "flawed".
LA and the Inland Empire are the classic example of this, where as of 2010, 23% of San Bernardino workers commute to LA/OC and 15% of Riverside county residents doing the same. Commercial traffic is even more tied, since the biggest industry in the OC is warehousing for supplying the LA metro, as well as being the area where industry relocated when land in LA and Orange Counties became too expensive. The IE would be a small town/rural area if it wasn't functioning as the cheap suburbs of LA.
Separating the Bay Area into North and South is fairly arbitrary as well.
Yeah, I consider Inland Empire nothing more than LA sprawl. Most of the folks who live out there are LA natives that were priced out, especially during the 1990s and 2000s real estate bubble.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned it, but Cincinnati and Dayton is another weird one to me.
As many folks probably know, it's nothing but suburban sprawl the entire length along I-75, and aside from a brief couple ofmiles, I-75 is four lanes the entire length.
By the time you leave Cincinnati's suburbs, before you can blink, you're in Dayton's suburbs (Franklin, OH is kind of the midway point).
I know they're growing at a snails pace,but Dayton's growth has mostly been southward while Cincinnati's growth has mostly been northward. So I'd be surprised if they don't become one CSA in the near future (the locals already kind of function as though they are connected).
By the time you leave Cincinnati's suburbs, before you can blink, you're in Dayton's suburbs (Franklin, OH is kind of the midway point).
The actual midway point would be the rest area south of Monroe.
For some strange reason Clinton County is in the Cincinnati MSA even though it’s just a giant cornfield over 50 miles away with Wilmington in the middle but Preble County right next to Dayton is not part of their MSA.
Wake County provides more DPAC and DBAP season-ticket holders than any other county including Durham. Essentially Wake powers two downtowns.
No one is more frustrated by this than the current Raleigh City Council. Unfortunately there's not much we can do right now. We're getting a new city hall designed by an award winning design studio Henning Larsen so no doubt whenever it's time to renovate or rebuild the DEPCA it will be with great ambition and vision. Remember, the area around DEPCA currently isn't great however there is an incredible amount of redevelopment around DEPCA planned this decade. So it's only a matter of time.
The rule of thumb should be, if Worcester MSA is more of shadow of Boston, then it should be part of Boston metro. Same for providence metro too. My gut feeling is that both Worcester/Providence should be counted as part of Boston metro because of commuter rail and closeness on jobs commuting and rails and culture.
For New Haven metro, I know it is not part of NYC metro because majority of folks work locally, very few commute to NYC, culturally New Haven metro is more of New England, not NY.
But for Stamford or specifically fairfield county CT, yes, it should be counted as part of NYC metro, cuturally, work commuters wise it is true.
I think given how far the current definition of the Boston MSA goes into New Hampshire there are two options that make More practical sense. By practical I mean the actual feel/culture of the metro Boston area:
1. Boston MSA should include Providence and Worcester. The two cities are very much sort of the Boston orbit and its signals theres far reach-the way it reaches as into NH/Manchester
Or
2. Boston MSA should just be all of Eastern MA minus the Cape and Islands. Northern and Eastern Bristol County is very much Boston influenced/centric. Southern New Hampshire simply becomes Manchester-Nashua MSA. This tighter boundary would reflect the concentrated nature of development and population density in the Boston MSA.
As a DC resident, I believe that Warren county in VA should not be part of the DC MSA, especially given that fewer than half of the residents don't commute to DC (see attached link).
I also believe that Raleigh and Durham should be in the same MSA and I think the same about Winston-Salem and Greensboro.
As a DC resident, I believe that Warren county in VA should not be part of the DC MSA, especially given that fewer than half of the residents don't commute to DC (see attached link).
I also believe that Raleigh and Durham should be in the same MSA and I think the same about Winston-Salem and Greensboro.
Raleigh and Durham should be in the same MSA but the two Triad cities probably shouldn't as they aren't very connected with each other as there is a good bit of distance between the two, unlike the Triangle where Raleigh's and Durham's borders touch. the Triad's dynamic is basically the same as the SC Upstate except there's 3 core cities instead of 2 in the Upstate.
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