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I think that's reasonable and how i think of it as well through combined urban areas rather than MSAs since the county level I think is too irregular and often too expansive. I do think there needs to be more development / transit links between Baltimore and Washington before reasonably considering it one urban area.
Yeah by UA DC-Baltimore are a long way off of Mega-city status. Combined there “only” 7.4 million.
A 10 million UA DC-Baltimore would look wild though as there combined UA by land area is only ~1930 sq/mi. It would be the densest urbanized area in the US that’s not NYC or in California.
Poor Philadelphia, let's Toast to Philadelphia's final days as 7th largest Metro. Philly will still be a Great City
Washington MSA: 6,265,183
Philadelphia MSA: 6,241,163
Atlanta MSA: 6,237,435
Atlanta will surely pass DC too.
And I have a suspicion that Philadelphia may sneak up on DC. If that is the case, then "poor DC" for dropping 2 spots.
*Just a predication, no need for outrage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelCityRising
Yeah. Sadly Pennsylvania is the poster child of stagnation.
Keep in mind metro land areas. Atlanta ~8400 sq/miles, Philadelphia ~5700sq/miles.
I wouldn't put Greater Philadelphia in the stagnant PA bucket because it will drop a spot, and considering the region (and Lehigh Valley) largely keeps the state afloat (different topic though).
I think an intermediary above UA would be good--something that still uses census tracts as the basic unit, but can include non strictly contiguous parts to some extent if there is enough commute threshold and fills in "holes" when a UA surrounds tracts.
UAs aren't strictly contiguous.
"2. Inclusion of Noncontiguous Territory via Hops and Jumps
Any EBA created in Step B.1 that contains at least ten housing units or a group quarter in a block with at least 500 PPSM may be added to an Initial Urban Core via a hop or a jump.
Hops connect EBAs separated by no more than 0.5 miles of road connections. Multiple hops can occur along road connections between EBAs leading to an Initial Urban Core. After all hop connections are made, EBAs that contain one or more Initial Cores will be considered Core EBAs.
The Census Bureau will then add additional EBAs via jump connections. Jumps are used to connect densely settled noncontiguous territory separated from the Core EBA by territory with low housing unit density. A jump can occur along a road connection that is greater than 0.5 miles but no more than 1.5 miles. Because it is possible that any given densely developed area could qualify for inclusion in multiple Core EBAs via a jump connection, the identification of jumps in an automated process starts with the Core EBA that has the highest number of housing units and continues in descending order based on the total housing units of each Core EBA. Once a Core EBA is added to another Core EBA via a jump, it becomes ineligible for any other jumps.
The non-qualifying blocks along the road connection are not included in the delineation; therefore, Core EBAs that contain hop or jump connections will be noncontiguous aggregations.
Those remaining EBAs that did not have an Initial Urban Core but contain the following will remain as candidates for inclusion in subsequent steps:
At least ten housing units, or
A group quarter and a block-level density of at least 500 PPSM.
3. Inclusion of Noncontiguous Territory Separated by Exempted Territory
The Census Bureau will identify and exempt territory in which residential development is substantially constrained or not possible due to either topographical or land use conditions. Such exempted territory offsets urban development due to particular land use, land cover, or topographic conditions. For the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau considers the following to be exempted territory:
(a) Bodies of water (as defined by the Census Bureau, or classified as water in the land cover data); and
(b) Wetlands (belonging to any wetlands classifications in the land cover data).
When the hop and jump criteria in Step B.2 are applied, the qualifying hop or jump connections may be extended when the intervening non-qualifying blocks contain exempted territory, provided that:
(c) The road connection across the exempted territory (located on both sides of the road) is no greater than five miles in length; and
(d) The total length of the road connection between the Core EBA and the noncontiguous territory, including the exempt distance and non-exempt hop or jump distances, is also no greater than five miles.
The intervening low housing unit density block or blocks and the block or blocks of water or wetlands are not included in the Core EBA."
Are there any updated population lists on MSAs with the new delineation? I can't find anything other than the link to the doc in the OP so I'm assuming we still need to do manual calculations.
Yeah. Sadly Pennsylvania is the poster child of stagnation.
No need to single out PA; I don't think that's any more true than the rest of the Northeast/Midwest. The non-Sun Belt US has long had a "mature" rate of growth, and I'm not sure why that's seen as a bad thing. The Northeast actually continues to improve its standard-of-living metrics, and especially in PA, adjusting for COL increases. If PA can continue to grow its share of immigration (and I think it will), it will be able to tread water, if not continue to grow slightly, which is fine in my book.
Fact: no city or state will be growing ad infinitum. The Northeast is the "leading indicator" for the US.
"2. Inclusion of Noncontiguous Territory via Hops and Jumps
Any EBA created in Step B.1 that contains at least ten housing units or a group quarter in a block with at least 500 PPSM may be added to an Initial Urban Core via a hop or a jump.
Hops connect EBAs separated by no more than 0.5 miles of road connections. Multiple hops can occur along road connections between EBAs leading to an Initial Urban Core. After all hop connections are made, EBAs that contain one or more Initial Cores will be considered Core EBAs.
The Census Bureau will then add additional EBAs via jump connections. Jumps are used to connect densely settled noncontiguous territory separated from the Core EBA by territory with low housing unit density. A jump can occur along a road connection that is greater than 0.5 miles but no more than 1.5 miles. Because it is possible that any given densely developed area could qualify for inclusion in multiple Core EBAs via a jump connection, the identification of jumps in an automated process starts with the Core EBA that has the highest number of housing units and continues in descending order based on the total housing units of each Core EBA. Once a Core EBA is added to another Core EBA via a jump, it becomes ineligible for any other jumps.
The non-qualifying blocks along the road connection are not included in the delineation; therefore, Core EBAs that contain hop or jump connections will be noncontiguous aggregations.
Those remaining EBAs that did not have an Initial Urban Core but contain the following will remain as candidates for inclusion in subsequent steps:
At least ten housing units, or
A group quarter and a block-level density of at least 500 PPSM.
3. Inclusion of Noncontiguous Territory Separated by Exempted Territory
The Census Bureau will identify and exempt territory in which residential development is substantially constrained or not possible due to either topographical or land use conditions. Such exempted territory offsets urban development due to particular land use, land cover, or topographic conditions. For the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau considers the following to be exempted territory:
(a) Bodies of water (as defined by the Census Bureau, or classified as water in the land cover data); and
(b) Wetlands (belonging to any wetlands classifications in the land cover data).
When the hop and jump criteria in Step B.2 are applied, the qualifying hop or jump connections may be extended when the intervening non-qualifying blocks contain exempted territory, provided that:
(c) The road connection across the exempted territory (located on both sides of the road) is no greater than five miles in length; and
(d) The total length of the road connection between the Core EBA and the noncontiguous territory, including the exempt distance and non-exempt hop or jump distances, is also no greater than five miles.
The intervening low housing unit density block or blocks and the block or blocks of water or wetlands are not included in the Core EBA."
I don't get the fixation on CSAs. When the OMB upped the commuting threshold to 25% from 15%, they were created as a surrogate for the old definition. However, they don't do a good job of that since the employment interchange is between the metros and micros as a whole and not with the central counties. This means you get as one poster said, a daisy-chain effect, with commuters from outlying places commuting to the edges instead of the center putting a metro/micro in the CSA.
Another issue with CSAs is they are not all inclusive. Not every metro or micro in in a CSA, so everything is not covered. MSAs have their issues since they are based on counties, and it would be better if they were based on county subdivisions (but not all states have them) or on census tracts. The issue there is that intercensal data is usually not available for all of these areas.
I don't get the fixation on CSAs. When the OMB upped the commuting threshold to 25% from 15%, they were created as a surrogate for the old definition. However, they don't do a good job of that since the employment interchange is between the metros and micros as a whole and not with the central counties. This means you get as one poster said, a daisy-chain effect, with commuters from outlying places commuting to the edges instead of the center putting a metro/micro in the CSA.
Another issue with CSAs is they are not all inclusive. Not every metro or micro in in a CSA, so everything is not covered. MSAs have their issues since they are based on counties, and it would be better if they were based on county subdivisions (but not all states have them) or on census tracts. The issue there is that intercensal data is usually not available for all of these areas.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution.
Good luck getting away from that daisy chain effect.
Metros are getting less and less centralized.
I do agree that the dasy chain links takes away from the legitimacy of some areas in metros, but with employment centers popping up in edge cities all across the country, how do you get around it?
Absorbing the whole county into a metro is something that must go. Maybe that would help limit the daisy chain effect.
Another thing might be to have different commuting qualifications. Maybe a higher threshold for non-central counties.
We have gotten so used to comparing regions, and looking at them as cities that now they are all giant blobs we don't know what to make of them.
Maybe we need to go back to more local levels. One central county and the metro based on commuting into that central county. Maybe an adjacent county can become a central county if there is continuous development between the two of at least 5k ppsm and a commuting threshold of 25%.
Idk, it's becoming more and more meaningless having areas considered one just because they are close.
Are there any updated population lists on MSAs with the new delineation? I can't find anything other than the link to the doc in the OP so I'm assuming we still need to do manual calculations.
I can't find a list, but here is a manually transcribed ranking from one of the OP's posts. Since I'm the one transcribing the list it has my "personalized" touch as I refuse to recognize San Jose or Riverside as actual independent metro's in area comparisons lol. If there are errors I apologize, such is the risk with manual transcription.
1 New York 19,557,311
2 Los Angeles 17,539,880
3 Chicago 9,274,140
4 Dallas 7,943,685
5 Houston 7,368,466
6 San Francisco 6,518,123
7 Washington 6,279,183
8 Philadelphia 6,241,164
9 Atlanta 6,172,501
10 Miami 6,139,340
11 Phoenix 5,015,678
12 Boston 4,900,550
13 Riverside is a fraud metro see LA
14 Detroit 4,345,761
15 Seattle 4,034,248
16 Minneapolis 3,693,729
17 Tampa 3,290,730
18 San Diego 3,276,208
19 Denver 2,985,871
20 Baltimore 2,835,672
21 St. Louis 2,801,319
22 Orlando 2,764,182
23 Charlotte 2,756,069
24 San Antonio 2,655,342
25 Portland 2,509,489
26 Pittsburgh 2,434,021
27 Austin 2,421,115
28 Sacremento 2,416,702
29 Las Vegas 2,322,985
30 Cincinnati 2,258,099
31 Kansas City 2,209,494
32 Columbus 2,161,511
33 Cleveland 2,160,146
34 Indianapolis 2,119,839
35 Nashville 2,072,283
36 San Jose is a fraud metro see San Fran
37 Norfolk 1,787,188
38 Jacksonville 1,675,668
39 Providence 1,673,802
40 Milwaukee 1,559,792
41 Raleigh 1,484,338
42 Oklahoma City 1,459,380
43 Louisville 1,361,946
44 Memphis 1,339,855
45 Richmond 1,339,182
46 Salt Lake City 1,266,191
47 Birmingham 1,181,196
48 Fresno 1,175,446
49 Buffalo 1,161,192
50 Hartford 1,158,069
51 Grand Rapids 1,157,752
52 Tucson 1,057,597
53 Rochester 1,056,801
54 Tulsa 1,034,123
55 Honolulu 995,638
56 Omaha 976,671
57 New Orleans 972,913
58 Greenville 958,958
59 Bridgeport 950,976
60 Albuquerque 919,543
61 Bakersfield 916,108
62 Albany 904,617
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