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I’m hoping to see Mobile-Daphne finally reunite into a single metro area again
I think Raleigh Durham have a chance of combining and Huntsville just might absorb the Decatur metro area
Mobile-Daphne isn't going to happen unfortunately. The population is largely growing because of retirees and Boomers, so as the population grows, the commuter interchange with Mobile keeps dropping since a smaller proportion of the population is crossing the bridge.
Wake + Durham + Orange + Chatham + Johnston + Franklin "Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill MSA" would be the most "authentic" representation of how the area actually functions as a metropolitan region. Harnett could/should be included and probably will again eventually but I guess I can believe that the Lillington and points south ties to Fayetteville are stronger than the Angier ties to Wake...for now.
I am curious for all of the regional definitions all over the country if "commuting patterns" will still be the be-all-end-all.....considering how much WFH has become far more common and far fewer people are physically commuting into employment centers daily.
Here's what I see on OnTheMap for the proportion of people in Harnett commuting to either Wake or Johnson Counties:
Obviously the formula is far more complex than this but there's a clear - if moderate - trend of Harnett County workers increasingly commuting to Wake/Johnson and a very strong decline in the number who stay intra-county for work or go to Cumberland. In 2010, the Cumberland/Harnett advantage was +7.5%. Now Raleigh/Johnson have a lead of +3.1%. A 10% swing of that nature is usually indicative of a potential poach.
Here's the % of Orange County, Virginia, commuters into the DC MSA (again, this is not looking at cross-commuting interchange or core counties, so is more a rule of thumb):
2002: 34.7% (12.4% went to Charlottesville MSA)
2005: 38.2% (11.9% went to Charlottesville MSA)
2010: 40.9% (12.0% went to Charlottesville MSA)
2015: 40.0% (11.7% went to Charlottesville MSA)
2020: 41.7% (12.3% went to Charlottesville MSA)
Commuters to DC MSA excl. Culpeper, Fredericksburg city, Spotsylvania (all of which are non-core)
2002: 18.5%
2005: 19.6%
2010: 22.0%
2015: 22.4%
2020: 25.0%
Census is stubborn and won't add Fredericksburg as a core county, but even without it, Orange County looks primed to join the CSA.
Obviously the formula is far more complex than this but there's a clear - if moderate - trend of Harnett County workers increasingly commuting to Wake/Johnson and a very strong decline in the number who stay intra-county for work or go to Cumberland. In 2010, the Cumberland/Harnett advantage was +7.5%. Now Raleigh/Johnson have a lead of +3.1%. A 10% swing of that nature is usually indicative of a potential poach.
Is there a reason you have Harnett County numbers mixed with Cumberland? Wouldn’t straight-up Wake vs Cumberland numbers be more beneficial?
Is there a reason you have Harnett County numbers mixed with Cumberland? Wouldn’t straight-up Wake vs Cumberland numbers be more beneficial?
Neither. The formula is very cryptic and complex. It would be Wake/Johnson vs. Cumberland/Hoke (the "core counties" of each MSA). Then you'd take Harnett County and compare it's commuting to both of these cores by using their "employment interchange measure" formula). But that data all gets posted here (usually well after the bulletin goes out: https://www.census.gov/topics/employ...nce/flows.html) so we're flying blind.
And beforehand, you'd have to determine whether Harnett is sufficiently tied to Fayetteville to become a core county (in which case it getting poached is far harder).
But it's far more complex than just Wake/Cumberland. Otherwise Harnett would have been in Wake County's sphere long ago. Here's commuting from Harnett to either Cumberland or Wake:
2002: 21.5% Wake vs. 9.5% Cumberland
2005: 20.6% vs. 10.9%
2010: 21.7% vs. 12.9%
2015: 24.5% vs. 12.9%
2020: 25.9% vs. 11.2%
As you can see, commuting to Wake has always been higher than to Cumberland yet Harnett was added to Fayetteville's MSA.
So I don't really focus on the %, but use OnTheMap to see the scale of the shift in commuting. And then looked at the 2002-2013 trends and compared to the 2013 delineation to reverse engineer it a bit and see when shifts happen.
And OnTheMap makes it easy to look at commuting to different metros. Hence why Harnett/Cumberland were bundled. But it's all a fuzzy art, definitely not a science. All we can really determine is that as time goes on, Harnett is drifting further into Raleigh's sphere. And when a county commutes to another MSA more than to its own (even when you include intra-county commuters), that's usually a red flag tipping point.
God, 3.5% to Snohomish, that's masochistic. Even with no traffic that's an hour and a half drive. But if all 3 Seattle MSA counties are "core" employment counties, Thurston is at 24.1% commuting. If only King + Pierce are core, it's at 20.7%, so not merging anytime soon.
Anne Arundel County, Maryland, commuting to either Baltimore MSA or Washington MSA
1st # is Baltimore MSA, 2nd # is Washington MSA
2002: 71.3% - 25.6%
2005: 72.0% - 24.6%
2010: 68.3% - 27.5%
2015: 71.6% - 24.4%
2020: 70.5% - 25.2%
And if you remove Anne Arundel County from the Baltimore MSA #s you get:
2002: 31.8% - 25.6%
2005: 29.6% - 24.6%
2010: 29.4% - 27.5%
2015: 30.4% - 24.4%
2020: 31.4% - 25.2%
Not really much movement for all the talk of DC poaching it.
And here's Howard County:
1st # is Baltimore MSA, 2nd # is Washington MSA
2002: 66.1% - 30.7%
2005: 65.3% - 31.9%
2010: 62.1% - 34.3%
2015: 67.8% - 29.0%
2020: 67.7% - 28.7%
And if you remove Howard County from the Baltimore MSA #s you get:
2002: 34.7% - 25.6%
2005: 34.7% - 24.6%
2010: 35.3% - 27.5%
2015: 37.3% - 24.4%
2020: 38.4% - 25.2%
Commuting into core Baltimore is actually increasing, largely buoyed by a noticeable decline in Howard County commuting to MontCo or PG County. Another one where the data is showing something opposite from the zeitgeist of this forum.
Commuting into core Baltimore is actually increasing, largely buoyed by a noticeable decline in Howard County commuting to MontCo or PG County. Another one where the data is showing something opposite from the zeitgeist of this forum.
That's C-D echo chamber at it's finest.
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