Tracking metropolitan America into the 21st century - Population ...

the MSA/CMSA combined list (276areas, including 258 MSAs and 18CMSAs), which was favored by OMBand the Census Bureau, or theMSA/PMSA combined list (331 areas,including 258 MSAs and 73 PMSAs),which common practice tended tofavor. Statistical rankings includingmetropolitan growth rates, crime statistics,employment patterns and qualityof life indicators in publicationssuch as the popular The Places RatedAlmanac used the MSA/PMSA system,as have most publications in Brookings’Living Cities Census Series. Forthe remainder of this report, we willalso use MSAs and PMSAs as benchmarksfor comparison with the newsystem.An additional choice faced analystsof metropolitan areas in the six NewEngland states. OMB defined MSAs,PMSAs, and CMSAs for these states,as well as an alternative set of areasknown as New England County MetropolitanAreas (NECMAs). New EnglandMSAs, CMSAs, and PMSAs werebased on city and town componentsrather than counties, but many analystswere unable to obtain relevantinformation at the town level. Hence,NECMAs were developed as countybasedcounterparts to New England’sconventional metro areas. Manynational analyses, therefore, usedMSAs, CMSAs, and PMSAs, outsideof New England, along with NECMAsinside the region.Finally, the previous standards didnot define any settlements outside ofthe metropolitan areas. All of the residualcounties in the United States (ortowns in New England) were labeled“non-metropolitan.” Some analystschose to use individual counties as ameans of distinguishing areas withinnonmetropolitan territory. 10 Researchersat the Department of Agriculture createdRural-Urban Continuum Codes(“Beale Codes”) to distinguish amongnon-metropolitan counties based ontheir urban population and adjacencyto metropolitan areas. 11Metro Area Choices under theNew StandardsFor those interested in comparingmetropolitan areas across the country,there is now really only one choice:the Metropolitan Statistical Area(designated in this paper as MetroSA).Although the new system allows forsome hierarchical choices for analysesof individual areas (discussed below),inter-metropolitan analyses are bestconducted using the MetroSA, whichnow is based exclusively on countylevelcomponents in both New Englandand non-New England states.MetroSAs are defined using somewhatdifferent criteria than the old MSAs,CMSAs, and PMSAs. As a consequence,both the size and number ofmetropolitan areas have changed.According to the new standards,metropolitan area central counties,which form the basis for determiningoutlying counties via commuting patterns,are now determined exclusivelyby their overlap with urban areas of allsizes so that the more restrictive“urbanized areas or cities of 50,000 ormore” criterion is no longer part oftheir definition. 12 The extent of urbanareas has also changed, due to populationgrowth and new definitional criteria.Together, these changes haveincreased the number of central counties,thus enlarging the potential commutingfields of many largemetropolitan areas. 13At the same time, new commutingcriteria for adding outlying counties toa region’s central counties are morerestrictive than those used previously.Thus, 41 counties which previouslyserved as outlying counties of metropolitanareas do not qualify as suchunder the new rules, but have nowbecome part of new micropolitanareas.One result of the change in criteriafor defining metropolitan areas is thatthe larger MetroSAs are more comparablein size and area to the formerCMSAs than to the former PMSAs. 14As a consequence, users who areaccustomed to employing thePMSA/MSA definitions under the oldsystem will find that the number ofmetropolitan areas with populationsexceeding one million drops from 61to 49 in the new system. At the sametime, the number of metropolitanareas with populations less than250,000 rises from 149 to 195. Yet,the 49 large MetroSAs comprise aboutthe same share of the U.S. population—53percent—as the 61 largeMSAs/PMSAs (Figure 4). At the otherend of the size spectrum, the 195small Metro SAs comprise only aslightly larger share of U.S. populationthan the 149 small MSAs/PMSAs (10percent versus 8 percent).Altogether, the new standardsdescribe 361 MetroSAs, comparedto 331 MSAs/PMSAs under the oldsystem.As with the previous standards,OMB defines an alternative set ofareas in the six New England states.Unlike the old standards, however,these alternative areas are defined atthe city and town level and are calledNew England City and Town Areas(NECTAs). MetroSAs in New Englandare comprised of counties, makingcounties the basic “buildingblocks” of metropolitan areas bothinside and outside the New Englandstates.Finally, the most recognizablechange with the new standards is theidentification of smaller “metropolitanlike”communities. These new areas,called micropolitan areas, define meaningful“core-based” areas with corestoo small to qualify as MetroSAs. Theyare discussed in finding B.The New Hierarchy Options forLocal AreasWhile the new standards provide a singleunit, the MetroSA, for comparingmetropolitan areas across the country,they provide additional choices whenthe focus turns to local areas (Figure5). Combined Statistical Areas(CSAs) represent two or more adjoin-November 2004 • The Brookings Institution The Living Cities Census Series 5