Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Jacksonville being the most populated city in the Southeast is the most obvious example. It’s factually true without being terribly insightful. It being the 10th largest metro is better.
That said, MSA’s can deceive too. They just do it less often.
What is an example of an MSA being misleading in determining the size/impact on the city?
Status:
"See My Blog Entries for my Top 500 Most Important USA Cities"
(set 4 days ago)
Location: Harrisburg, PA
1,051 posts, read 975,507 times
Reputation: 1406
Quote:
Originally Posted by annie_himself
What is an example of an MSA being misleading in determining the size/impact on the city?
Well I am going to answer your question as if you instead phrased it this way:
What is an example of an MSA being misleading in determining the size/impact OF the city?
The answer: Orbiting / suburb / exurb metro areas.
Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario (Inland Empire), Oxnard CA, Vallejo CA, Bridgeport CT, Springfield MA, Worcester MA, Allentown PA, Port St. Lucie FL, are all decent-sized - but they all punch below their respective weights/sizes. While their MSA's accurately reflect their populations, much of their existence is owed to / reliant upon much larger nearby cities (NYC, LA, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami). They get overshadowed in a big way. Does not mean they are worthless. Just means they are REALLY difficult to rank their significance...
Take the Inland Empire, by far the largest example - 4.6 million MSA population. What are its peer cities? Certainly not Phoenix (and I am by no means boosting Phoenix, but PHX is a stand-alone city dominating its region, whereas Riverside stands in the shadow of a GLOBAL city). Would Riverside then instead be grouped with, say Tucson (a much smaller population - 1 million MSA), then, in terms of importance? Idk, that certainly feels like an, odd (at best), comparison to make. Gets into a weird gray area ranking orbiting / suburb / exurb MSAs.
It is almost like Riverside really has no, direct, peers.
Weird that Orange County is included with the LA MSA, but not Riverside or San Bernardino Counties...
Well I am going to answer your question as if you instead phrased it this way:
What is an example of an MSA being misleading in determining the size/impact OF the city?
The answer: Orbiting / suburb / exurb metro areas.
Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario (Inland Empire), Oxnard CA, Vallejo CA, Bridgeport CT, Springfield MA, Worcester MA, Allentown PA, Port St. Lucie FL, are all decent-sized - but they all punch below their respective weights/sizes. While their MSA's accurately reflect their populations, much of their existence is owed to / reliant upon much larger nearby cities (NYC, LA, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami). They get overshadowed in a big way. Does not mean they are worthless. Just means they are REALLY difficult to rank their significance...
Take the Inland Empire, by far the largest example - 4.6 million MSA population. What are its peer cities? Certainly not Phoenix (and I am by no means boosting Phoenix, but PHX is a stand-alone city dominating its region, whereas Riverside stands in the shadow of a GLOBAL city). Would Riverside then instead be grouped with, say Tucson (a much smaller population - 1 million MSA), then, in terms of importance? Idk, that certainly feels like an, odd (at best), comparison to make. Gets into a weird gray area ranking orbiting / suburb / exurb MSAs.
It is almost like Riverside really has no, direct, peers.
Weird that Orange County is included with the LA MSA, but not Riverside or San Bernardino Counties...
Riverside isn’t even in its own media market. I would think that should be a big indicator in a discussion like this. Or that the boundaries that make up it’s MSA is only slightly smaller than the state of South Carolina. The inland empire is just a collection of suburbs that have been statistically separated into an independent MSA due to commuting patterns. Riverside is the best example of a fraud metro IMO. I would say San Jose is a close 2nd. I’d also suggest that New York’s CT burbs qualify as well. There are other smaller examples like Worcester to Boston, or Ann Arbor to Detroit. None as obvious as Riverside.
MSAs are the most consistent. They start becoming less reliable when the formula creating them starts dividing urbanized clusters. There are several hundred MSAs but only a couple dozen that are really affected by this.
The population within the city limits might give you an idea of density if you know the size/area but it means little when looking at the importance of a "place". the metro population is more important. St. Louis is a prime example but there are many others. The city of St. Louis population is slightly more than half the size of Albuquerque, but its metro is almost three times larger.
Cities have a hierarchy of importance based on more than population. A county seat will be arguably the most important town in the county for certain purposes though not always the largest. I always pictured Grand Junction, Colorado, as a large city but it isn't anywhere as large as I assumed. Instead, it is the regionally important commercial, marketing, agricultural, and tourist center on the western slope of the Rockies. That makes it more important than its size.
In my state, New Mexico, everyone has heard of Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Albuquerque is the state's largest city and has a metro area of about one million people with slightly more than half that inside the city. Santa Fe looms large in America's consciousness as the country's oldest state capital, founded around 1607, and a cultural powerhouse and art center. Santa Fe is the fourth largest city in New Mexico. Las Cruces is the second largest city, home to NM State University -- the Aggies, and it's largest city near Spaceport America, about 60 miles away. The city of Rio Rancho is the third largest city and is likely to pass Las Cruces at its current rate of growth (it has only 2500 fewer population). Rio Rancho is adjacent to Albuquerque on the northwest and home to (expanding) Intel and Hewlett Packard facilities, a campus of the University on New Mexico, and Central New Mexico community College. Unlike Santa Fe and Albuquerque (1703), Rio Rancho dates back to the 1960s. As a city, it does not loom large in America's consciousness. Neither does New Mexico for that matter, the 5th largest state with a population of two million. Many Americans have yet to figure out that New Mexico is a state (since 1912) and not a foreign country.
There used to be something called the Bureau of Economic Analysis Economic Areas, which they stopped doing about 10 or so years ago. It would include not only the metro area, but surrounding areas that are influenced economically by that metro area. Here is an old map of such areas, which there were about 170-180 of: http://beagov.prod.acquia-sites.com/...df/rea1104.pdf (page 2)
For instance, using this, the Syracuse Economic Area node had roughly 2 million people or so, which was the second biggest in the state.
So, there were other measures that were used to show how much influence a city/area has/had, including economically.
I think you are talking about Albany NY’s CSA numbers, not Albany GA’s MSA numbers.
Didn't realize there was another Albany Does Georgia have a Schenectady too?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Does Georgia have a Schenectady too? 
