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I checked the following info on a thread awhile back. The "issue" with Wake and Durham being separate metros was the commuting percentages of each county. I don't have the time at the moment to find the links to this info, but if my memory is correct, Wake only had around 17% of its workers commute into Durham county. Durham county had around 16% commute into Wake.
See, here's the problem with the methodology. Clearly, the intention is to measure smaller outlying counties' commutes into a presumed large jobs county/center of a metro. If 25% is the benchmark, the methodology is likely to almost always be measuring a suburban county's commute into a central county. While neither of the two main Triangle counties match that metric by the numbers you provide (I'm just going to trust that they are correct), 17% of one + 16% of the other is a significant amount of people crossing counties and MSAs on a daily basis.
Alas, this is probably why the CSA designation was created, to clean up anomalies within their methodology that didn't pass the sniff test. Of course, this opens up an entire different set of discussions and arguments because not all CSA's are "created equally", with developing suburbs on the far edges of a central city metro being designated the same way as Raleigh and Durham sitting side by side; they aren't the same thing.
I never look at the CSA ranking to mean anything since there are lots of MSAs that aren't in a CSA. To fix this comparison, there's yet another ranking of Primary Statistical Areas. In this one, the highest level of official designation is compared, allowing MSA's that are not part of a CSA to be included in the comparison.
In the end, there are real life consequences that the Triangle may suffer due to the designations and I'll give you an example: Amazon HQ2. When the Amazon shortlisted to 20 cities, it named Raleigh as one of those cities. Reporters immediately go their sources to check data for comparisons and come back with "the city" as having 1.2 million people. That narrative spreads to other sources who report the same. In the meantime, Amazon clarifies that it shortlisted The Triangle, including possible locations across the metro other than "Raleigh". Of course, nobody clarifies the population and the narrative emerges that The Triangle is too small to support HQ2 at only 1.2 million (which, by itself is an old number for just the Raleigh MSA). In reality, the Triangle is actually larger than Nashville and is growing more rapidly. It houses more people in less land and adds more each year. Yet, due to the enormous land area of the Nashville MSA, it gets viewed otherwise. Nashville is also shortlisted but doesn't face the scrutiny to the extent that "Raleigh" does in the context of the bid.
That all said, I do have confidence that the Triangle will eventually be united under one MSA that, more or less, represents the two current MSAs with its micro areas on the periphery like most other MSA/CSA relationships. Will it come with the latest reshuffle? I don't know.
I am do not have a problem with Raleigh. I have friends and family in the Raleigh area. Raleigh is a great city to work and raise a family. Most of the people in Raleigh probably do not care about population data. And there are many people in Raleigh that understand population data. But there are some that post that do not have a clue about population data. But there are people posting on other fcity forum sites that do not understand population data. It is just not only in Raleigh that th problem exist.
Raleigh has a lot going for it. If is the second fastest growing MSA in the US by percentage among metros of at least 1.0 million. I agree with another poster. Raleigh and Charlotte are going to both be 5 million MSA populations. This will bring major traffic woes. So there is no need for Raleigh to be deceptive about its MSA population. It is what it is . Accept it and move on. The Raleigh MSA population will be 2 million by 2030 and hopefully then the N&O will drop its campaign of complaining about the area being split among two MSAs. Raleigh has too much going for it to continue us to whine about this subject. Whether Durham County is added or not, the Raleigh MSA will continue to add counties. And I do agree that the RTP is some of the problem that is preventing Wake from showing dominance. But downtown Raleigh needs to continue to grow and add jobs and residents. The core needs to become larger. But Raleigh has nothing to be ashamed of. You will eventually become 5 million with or without Durham and Orange Counties.
Mc2mbfl brings up some interesting points. It is true that the Raleigh area is a 2 or maybe 3 pronged metro that makes it different than most traditional metros. And yes the CMSA was created to address situations where the central county is not as dominant. But the CMSA is not the standard measure among metros. It is the MSA. That is why larger metros do not cite their CMSA population. It is not the standard measure. But there is no doubt that RDU is one unified area. But Wake County is just dominant enough for the area to be one MSA. But that is not to say that it cannot someday become one MSA.
I do go to other forum sites such as Charlotte, Columbia, Greenville, SC, Atlanta and Greensboro. I don’t come to the Raleigh site often...perhaps 6 times. Just for the record I think I have only posted once on the Raleigh site. But I have posted about population data on other sites. Perhaps the poster above has seen my comments on other city sites. But I have not posted nearly six times on Raleigh site.
You guys in Raleigh are experts at distorting the truth to prop up Raleigh. Rnc2bmfl talks about Nashville above. You can read his comments above. He states that due to the enormous land area of Nashville’s MSA it is viewed differently than Raleigh. That is correct because the MSA is the standard measurement not the CMSA. Nashville’s MSA is 1.9 million compared to Raleigh’s 1.3. Nashville’s central core is much larger than Raleigh’s. Raleigh’s CMSA is about 100 K larger than Nashville’s. So no Raleigh is not nevesssarily larger than Nashville’s. But to be honest neither could handle the influx of 50 K employees or 150K people in a sort time in addition to its normal growth. This is why Amazon will chose a top 10 market that is better suited to handle the growth.
See, here's the problem with the methodology. Clearly, the intention is to measure smaller outlying counties' commutes into a presumed large jobs county/center of a metro. If 25% is the benchmark, the methodology is likely to almost always be measuring a suburban county's commute into a central county. While neither of the two main Triangle counties match that metric by the numbers you provide (I'm just going to trust that they are correct), 17% of one + 16% of the other is a significant amount of people crossing counties and MSAs on a daily basis.
Alas, this is probably why the CSA designation was created, to clean up anomalies within their methodology that didn't pass the sniff test. Of course, this opens up an entire different set of discussions and arguments because not all CSA's are "created equally", with developing suburbs on the far edges of a central city metro being designated the same way as Raleigh and Durham sitting side by side; they aren't the same thing.
I never look at the CSA ranking to mean anything since there are lots of MSAs that aren't in a CSA. To fix this comparison, there's yet another ranking of Primary Statistical Areas. In this one, the highest level of official designation is compared, allowing MSA's that are not part of a CSA to be included in the comparison.
In the end, there are real life consequences that the Triangle may suffer due to the designations and I'll give you an example: Amazon HQ2. When the Amazon shortlisted to 20 cities, it named Raleigh as one of those cities. Reporters immediately go their sources to check data for comparisons and come back with "the city" as having 1.2 million people. That narrative spreads to other sources who report the same. In the meantime, Amazon clarifies that it shortlisted The Triangle, including possible locations across the metro other than "Raleigh". Of course, nobody clarifies the population and the narrative emerges that The Triangle is too small to support HQ2 at only 1.2 million (which, by itself is an old number for just the Raleigh MSA). In reality, the Triangle is actually larger than Nashville and is growing more rapidly. It houses more people in less land and adds more each year. Yet, due to the enormous land area of the Nashville MSA, it gets viewed otherwise. Nashville is also shortlisted but doesn't face the scrutiny to the extent that "Raleigh" does in the context of the bid.
That all said, I do have confidence that the Triangle will eventually be united under one MSA that, more or less, represents the two current MSAs with its micro areas on the periphery like most other MSA/CSA relationships. Will it come with the latest reshuffle? I don't know.
The Triangle can actually force the issue by merging Durham and Wake counties. Politically, that will probably never happen but it would instantly put Durham and Raleigh into one single MSA.
Rather amazing how my original post got derailed into being a Triangle vs. Charlotte standoff here. Looking at the Charlotte forum, I have yet to see somebody in the Triangle posting there how unfair the MSA comparisons are and so on. You're free to examine that way, but my intention was simply to show how the numbers confirmed what most of us already believe, that the Triangle continues to add new people, as does Charlotte and most of the other metropolitan areas of the state. It may disappoint some Charlotte residents, but many in the Triangle like me don't view it as a form of competition with that city, just as a sign that we're doing well economically but also have to address seriously the challenges of such growth on our infrastructure, housing, transportation, education, etc. There is also the implication that the gap is growing wider with many rural counties losing residents and what can or should be done to handle that too.
I do go to other forum sites such as Charlotte, Columbia, Greenville, SC, Atlanta and Greensboro. I don’t come to the Raleigh site often...perhaps 6 times. Just for the record I think I have only posted once on the Raleigh site. But I have posted about population data on other sites. Perhaps the poster above has seen my comments on other city sites. But I have not posted nearly six times on Raleigh site.
My comment was that you had, by the time of my comment, posted 6 times already on this one thread about Charlotte compared to Raleigh/Triangle, when that's not the topic of this particular thread.
The Triangle can actually force the issue by merging Durham and Wake counties. Politically, that will probably never happen but it would instantly put Durham and Raleigh into one single MSA.
This is very true, and goes to show how arbitrary the MSA designation sometimes is. Similarly, if RTP was just in either Durham or Wake, it might achieve a similar result in commuting patterns and percentages.
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