MSA's That Should Have Larger/Smaller Boundaries Than Census Gives

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Corey the Otter

Salisbury MD is another one, as it's MSA includes seaside towns which boost the population of the MSA to 400,000, making it comparable to Fort Wayne and Reading PA (I haven't been to any of these cities but just looking on google maps just shows that Salisbury is not on the same level as the other two).

That just means the area has multiple nodes. Salisbury might be the largest but it's not the only one. The metro population is just representative of the sum of its parts.

[rnc2mbfl]

Since it's been mentioned several times on this thread, here's a a link to an image of the municipalities in the Triangle area. In this image, the darker the color, the more densely populated. This map does not account for development that's outside of the municipal limits, and will likely stay a bit wonky south of Raleigh proper for quite some time since recent state law makes it nearly impossible for Raleigh to annex that void, which is mostly in Raleigh's ETJ. I doctored the map to show where RTP (Research Triangle Park) and RDU International are, since they show up as non-municipal voids. You'll also notice that the the SW and NE sides of the group of municipalities on the map have two reservoirs. These areas are also unincorporated because of their watersheds and the low density housing zoning that protects the drinking water from the reservoirs.
Yes folks, according to the OMB, this is two different MSAs. It's head scratching if you ask me.
https://www.city-data.com/forum/atta...angle-copy.png

[rnc2mbfl]

Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars

Feels weird to me that Seattle's MSA is only 3 counties (King, Snohomish, Pierce) while Portland's is like 8 counties. I think Seattle's should also include Thurston County (Olympia) and Kitsap County (Bremerton), which are CSA counties that are connected to Pierce by more-or-less unbroken development.

Not all counties are created equally. Portland may have 8 counties, but the counties themselves are smaller.
Portland MSA: 6684 m2
Seattle MSA: 5872 m2
While Portland's is still larger, it isn't by a magnitude anywhere near what counting counties might suggest.
As a comparison of a 3 county MSA to another 3 county MSA, Raleigh's MSA is only 2118 m2. Miami's another 3 county MSA and they are 5075 m2.