Is Erie Rural? (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown: college, live in, vs.)

[trackstar13]

Apparently Corbett thinks Erie is rural and has changed its designation from urban to rural. Thoughts?

Council Opposes "Rural" Designation - WICU12/WSEE Erie, PA News, Sports, Weather and Events

[PreservationPioneer]

The city itself is definitely urban.

[Ohiogirl81]

I know Corbett actually has stepped foot in the city. Apparently his head was up his behind during his visit.

Either way, it was the Department of Public Welfare that made this designation, and not the governor. My guess is that the public outcry -- and there's been plenty -- will work. It's just too inane for words.

[trackstar13]

I hope Erie is reconsidered as an urban area because I know that a significant amount of funding for the area is at stake. Also, if Erie is rural, what is urban in PA?

[ker8]

If Erie is rural then Harrisburg and every other "city" in PA except Pittsburgh & Philadelphia are also rural. Ridiculous.

[PacoMartin]

Of the official federal government urbanized areas, Erie is the 9th largest based primarily in PA.

Philadelphia, PA--NJ--DE--MD 5,441,567
Pittsburgh, PA 1,733,853
Allentown, PA--NJ 664,651
Harrisburg, PA 444,474
Lancaster, PA 402,004
Scranton, PA 381,502
Reading, PA 266,254
York, PA 232,045
Erie, PA 196,611
Pottstown, PA 107,682
State College, PA 87,454
Altoona, PA 79,930
Lebanon, PA 77,086
Johnstown, PA 69,014
Hanover, PA 66,301
Monessen--California, PA 66,086
Hazleton, PA 56,827
Williamsport, PA 56,142
East Stroudsburg, PA--NJ 54,316
Bloomsburg--Berwick, PA 53,618
Uniontown--Connellsville, PA 51,370
Chambersburg, PA 50,887

The former State of PA definition was always to go by population density of counties. First you calculate the population density of the state (284 people per square mile for entire state), and the counties with Popdensity below that are rural, and with higher than that are urban. The following is a list of urban counties.
Counties such as Perry are part of the Harrisburg MSA for federal census, but are considered rural by the state


Cameron 13 (least dense county in PA)
...
Perry 83: Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area
...
Monroe 279 (most dense rural county)
Erie 351
Westmoreland 355
Luzerne 360
Lebanon 369
Beaver 392
Cumberland 432: Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area
Lackawanna 467
Berks 480
York 481
Dauphin 511: Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area
Lancaster 550
Chester 665
Northampton 805
Lehigh 1013
Bucks 1035
Montgomery 1656
Allegheny 1676
Delaware 3041
Philadelphia 11379

This technique favors Westmoreland County even slightly over Erie County even though it does not have any large municipalities of it's own, but is part of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area

[Magritte25]

I would love to know how Dept of PW came up with this designation.

[trackstar13]

One thing worth noting is that Erie County is the largest county in PA at 1,558 square miles, but 48.7% of that is water, i.e. Lake Erie. The population density numbers take this into account and adjust for the percentage of water vs. land (just like every other county). However, Erie is unique since building is somewhat limited near the lake due to beach erosion and the constantly changing shoreline. Also, the literally thousands of acres of state parks (Presque Isle and Erie Bluffs) do not help boost the population density numbers since these are largely unpopulated.

I would say this is similar to Allegheny County being so hilly that there are areas you literally can't or wouldn't want to build on/develop. This is why the population density in Allegheny County is almost the same as Montgomery County, which feels much more rural than most parts of Allegheny County. As a final point, the population density is much higher in Erie/Millcreek than the rest of the county, but these areas are so densely populated that I can't imagine the whole county being considered rural. The city of Erie has a population density of 4,631 per square mile, which is actually comparable to Pittsburgh (5,636 per square mile).

The rural counties shown above do not have a city the size of Erie contained within and this whole change makes no sense to me.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Magritte25

I would love to know how Dept of PW came up with this designation.

(1) DPW technique. They take the population of the county and divide by the land area to get a density. Then they rank the counties. Previously the 19 counties that had a population density greater than that of the state were considered urban, and the rest of the counties were considered rural. According to this technique Erie is the least densely populated urban county. So to save funds, they removed Erie County from the list.

(2) Census department technique is to look at the relationship of each census tract and use an incredibly complex technique nationwide to determine what census tracts are in an urbanization area (UA). An UA completely ignores municipal boundaries (and even state boundaries). This technique is infinitely more fair. If you look at all counties that are more than 70% urban you get a list of 20 counties. The additional one is Blair County (Altoona urbanization area) which is classified as rural under technique #1. This technique changes the order of the counties. The first five are identical to technique #1, but Erie County is ranked much higher.

Using the census department technique, Erie County is ranked 12th most urban county in PA.Blair county would now be considered urban.

Urban% County Name, rank, DPW rank
100.0% Philadelphia County , 1 , 1
99.5% Delaware County , 2 , 2
97.5% Allegheny County , 3 , 3
97.1% Montgomery County , 4 , 4
92.1% Lehigh County , 5 , 6
91.2% Bucks County , 6 , 5
87.2% Northampton County , 7 , 7
86.7% Chester County , 8 , 8
86.7% Dauphin County , 9 , 10
83.7% Lackawanna County , 10 , 13
80.0% Luzerne County , 11 , 17
80.0% Erie County , 12 , 19
78.7% Lancaster County , 13 , 9
77.8% Cumberland County , 14 , 14
76.6% Blair County , 15 , rural
76.3% Berks County , 16 , 12
75.3% York County , 17 , 11
74.6% Westmoreland County , 18 , 18
74.2% Beaver County , 19 , 15
73.4% Lebanon County , 20 , 16

cutoff

69.2% Washington County , 21 ,
68.0% Cambria County , 22 ,
67.8% Centre County , 23 ,
65.1% Northumberland County , 24 ,
63.7% Lycoming County , 25 ,
63.5% Schuylkill County , 26 ,
61.6% Monroe County , 27 ,
59.7% Lawrence County , 28 ,
59.6% Franklin County , 29 ,
59.1% Columbia County , 30 ,
58.0% Butler County , 31 ,
57.2% Union County , 32 ,
55.5% Mercer County , 33 ,
54.3% Clinton County , 34 ,
52.8% Carbon County , 35 ,
52.6% Cameron County , 36 ,
52.1% Fayette County , 37 ,
49.5% Mifflin County , 38 ,
46.3% Adams County , 39 ,
46.2% Montour County , 40 ,
46.2% Clearfield County , 41 ,
45.2% Venango County , 42 ,
45.0% Warren County , 43 ,
44.3% Elk County , 44 ,
39.9% Indiana County , 45 ,
38.5% Jefferson County , 46 ,
36.5% McKean County , 47 ,
36.3% Crawford County , 48 ,
33.2% Snyder County , 49 ,
33.2% Greene County , 50 ,
32.5% Armstrong County , 51 ,
31.3% Huntingdon County , 52 ,
29.2% Pike County , 53 ,
29.2% Somerset County , 54 ,
27.8% Bradford County , 55 ,
23.4% Clarion County , 56 ,
17.7% Juniata County , 57 ,
16.5% Wyoming County , 58 ,
16.2% Bedford County , 59 ,
16.0% Susquehanna County , 60 ,
11.9% Wayne County , 61 ,
11.5% Perry County , 62 ,
9.9% Tioga County , 63 ,
0.0% Forest County , 64 ,
0.0% Fulton County , 65 ,
0.0% Potter County , 66 ,
0.0% Sullivan County , 67 ,

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by track2514

The rural counties shown above do not have a city the size of Erie contained within and this whole change makes no sense to me.

If you look at my post above you see that according to the Census department 80% of the people who live in Erie County live in an urban region. That should be the metric they use, not population density. Population density favors the Eastern counties because they are smaller in area, and most of the county land is buildable.

Using % of population with is urban Erie county ranks 12th. Using population density, Erie County ranks 19th.