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Sometimes when i'm bored I like to read up on my area on Wikipedia just to become more informed, and whenever I do this I always end up clicking on different links so, sometimes I end up in a completely different place than where I started, but anyways...today I was reading about the "Southeastern United States" and it listed the largest metro areas in the southeast. Now the part of that that frustrated me was that it listed the Raleigh-Cary Metro at 15th place with a population of 1,125,827. I honestly think that it should be the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel-Hill metro. Splitting it up in two like that makes a complete misconception of the Triangle. People that work in RTP live in Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Cary, Apex, Wake Forest, Knightdale, and any other town you can think of here; even people in Mebane and Burlington work in RTP. All these cities border each other and they even are built-up into each other's counties in some places. I just can't find any logical reason why the Bureau would do this, but yet they keep the Piedmont Triad together even though Greensboro and Winston-Salem are more seperate than the Triangle Cities.
If they hadn't split the metro's up we would be #7 on the list, right behind Charlotte and before Virginia Beach. Sorry about that, I just had to rant some Does anybody else feel the same way I do or am I just crazy?
Well for every city you add on to the Raleigh metro, I'm sure the 14 metros in front of Raleigh could add another city.
I mean I get what you're saying, but I believe that Raleigh is the base, and the metro extends out from there, not the mythical center of the "triangle".
I would think that calling it the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Metro would add to the confusion. I never liked Raleigh-Durham or the newer Raleigh-Cary identification. Such a declaration takes away from all the cities used for that identification and even the smaller towns that are in between those major areas.
To continue with another point, that would be like us saying that instead of simply calling it the Virginia Beach area, we should call it Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Suffolk metro. That's too much of a population enclosed on such an area.
I think such classifications such as Raleigh-Durham and then Raleigh-Cary are for population statistics, not where people live in distance to a centralized point like the RTP.
I agree with the OP. I thought it was kind of odd when I heard Raleigh/Cary. I've always thought it's either Raleigh, Raleigh/Durham or the Triangle. I know the Triangle couldn't be used on the census, but I think maybe the Raleigh/Durham metro area would have been better.
i think some people have too much time on their hands? LOL
Lol I just didn't have a very busy day today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kingyouth
I would think that calling it the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Metro would add to the confusion. I never liked Raleigh-Durham or the newer Raleigh-Cary identification. Such a declaration takes away from all the cities used for that identification and even the smaller towns that are in between those major areas.
To continue with another point, that would be like us saying that instead of simply calling it the Virginia Beach area, we should call it Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Suffolk metro. That's too much of a population enclosed on such an area.
I think such classifications such as Raleigh-Durham and then Raleigh-Cary are for population statistics, not where people live in distance to a centralized point like the RTP.
I agree, I never like when people call it Raleigh-Durham; somebody who doesn't know anything about the area might think it's just one city like Winston-Salem, but it isn't. And yes Raleigh, Durham, Chapel-Hill is a mouthful but it more clearly represents that the Triangle is a unified area with different cities that "coexist(?)." That might not make sense, I can't think of the word i'm trying to use at the moment. But I understand completely what you're saying and I agree with you, I just think there is a better way that the Census could represent our area.
The Census Bureau counts them separately as MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas): Raleigh-Cary and Durham-Chapel Hill.
But they also have CSAs...Combined Statistical Areas, and by that measure the Triangle is a single area called Raleigh-Durham-Cary. It also includes the Dunn Micropolitan Statistical Area.
The Triad is treated similarly. The Greensboro-High Point MSA and the Winston-Salem MSA are grouped together with several other micropolitan areas (Burlington, Mt. Airy, etc.) to form the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point CSA.
This is even common on larger scales where you have multiple urban centers in close proximity. Washington, DC and Baltimore are the hubs for individual MSAs, but there is also a larger Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia CSA that encompasses them.
Or look at the Bay Area out in California...San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont comprise one MSA, while San Jose and the Silicon Valley area is a separate one. Those two combine with four other smaller MSAs to form the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland CSA.
The Census Bureau's usage of MSAs and CSAs specifically helps recognize areas like the Triangle that have multiple distinct, but very closely related, urban areas.
It's a web of interconnections that can't be broken down to such a tiny criterion as who commutes to RTP, in no small part because you've got people commuting across other boundaries as well. Sure, people from Mebane and Burlington commute into the Triangle work, but others from those towns commute to the Triad (more in fact, which accounts for Burlington being in the Triad's CSA). So should the Triad and the Triangle be considered a single census area?
But then what about an area like Salisbury where you have people commuting to both the Triad and Charlotte? So where do you cut it off?
I have no problem with the Census Bureau using MSAs and CSAs as two levels of counting to help track some of the fine-grained details on our urban centers.
With all of the classifications, these population figures are worthless. San Diego used to brag that it was the 5th or 6th biggest city in America, and indeed its city limit population was over 1 million. Metro-wise it's almost a sleepy town. In fact, Raleigh-Durham's television market (25th largest) is bigger than San Diego's.
Here, everyone wants Atlanta's population to reach 6 million, but they're counting 28-30 counties. NC's metros touch each other already, and the population of central NC is at least 6 million.
Raleigh/Cary is a stupid metro area designation, because it touches Durham-Chapel Hill's metro area. Now compare with Richmond VA 's metro area which spans all of central VA.
And Charlotte wants to be big more than life itself. They crafted their own 13 or 14 county "Charlotte Region" extending well into SC with a population of 2-3 million.
The shocker is that Fayetteville and Cumberland county (and Hoke) has almost 400,000 people. Charlotteans are always saying that Eastern NC gets all the new roads that no one uses or needs. I think Fayetteville deserves its own urban loop with this many people.
My poor native Franklin County remains the last surrounding county unaffected/unimproved by Raleigh. Maybe great things will come for being last.
Well for every city you add on to the Raleigh metro, I'm sure the 14 metros in front of Raleigh could add another city.
I mean I get what you're saying, but I believe that Raleigh is the base, and the metro extends out from there, not the mythical center of the "triangle".
Just my two cents.
The inconsistency rises from the fact that metros are reported very differently from place to place. For instance, most metros (MSAs) are part of a CSA but some aren't. One example in the South is Miami. It's only a 3 county MSA. Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Richmond, Memphis and the Tidewater are also only MSAs. Conversely, Atlanta is part of a mega large CSA that covers much of northern Georgia. So, in fact, all 14 others in front of Raleigh can't statistically add another city. This is not a game of one-upmanship but rather one of appropriate comparisons. Does anyone who knows anything about the Triangle ever really think of either Raleigh/Cary or Durham/Chapel Hill as if the other didn't even exist? I think that's the point the OP is making when one uses just the Raleigh/Cary portion of the Triangle to express statistically the relationship of the Triangle to its Southern brethren.
One way to compare more equitably is to take the highest level of categorization and compare areas against each other. That level is called the Primary Census Statistical Areas. By this measurement, the Triangle and the Triad are counted as singular units for comparison. Other MSA's like Charlotte and Atlanta add micropolitan and smaller MSAs to their numbers. By the PCSA, here's the top 15 ranking in the Southeast (including WDC)
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Does anybody else feel the same way I do or am I just crazy?
