New York Times Article comparing Birmingham and Nashville (Mobile, Trussville: to live in, suburbs)

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by preguntas

At some point that seems reasonable. I have begun to think that ATL metro covering almost all of north Georgia is hard to believe. People driving from S.C. and Tenn. to work most days. I don't think so.

However, unlike you, the fact, or not does not impact my life enough to be here every night to involve myself.

yeah I feel the same way about atlanta. That said, at least it is *a little* more defensible in the case of atlanta to expand the area to some ridiculous circle due to how much of a hub atlanta is for jobs. The same can't be said about birmingham.

But yeah I don't consider somewhere 60 miles above atlanta(or south as in the case of somewhere like forsyth) to be part of the atlanta area either.

[mj7543]

I live in Middle Tennessee and the furthermost eastern county in Nashville Metro area is 55 miles from the city center. If you use those mileage standards for Birmingham, 1.18 million is definitely an undercount.

[OldBankhead]

That's fair. Nashville and Atlanta are sprawling sunbelt cities too. So it's no surpise their metros span to less dense somewhat rural areas. The OMB's methodology isn't about a set radius, but traffic counts from adjacent counties. So if enough people in a little town on the edge closest to the core city commute to it, than Cousin Zeke on the opposite side of the county who never comes out of the woods gets lassoed in too. It doesn't matter if he doesn't believe he is a part of the core city's metro ot not. That's just how it is.

The bottom line is they use the same process. So to fixate on one city because you have an agenda is just that.

[bhamblazer]

Originally Posted by mj7543

I live in Middle Tennessee and the furthermost eastern county in Nashville Metro area is 55 miles from the city center. If you use those mileage standards for Birmingham, 1.18 million is definitely an undercount.

True. And aside from day to day life, Birmingham draws from a wider radius for entertainment. People come from more than 50 miles away to go to concerts, sporting events, plays, comedy shows, festivals, etc.

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by mj7543

I live in Middle Tennessee and the furthermost eastern county in Nashville Metro area is 55 miles from the city center. If you use those mileage standards for Birmingham, 1.18 million is definitely an undercount.

Sure....I don't think there are as many people in the nashville area as listed either.

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by OldBankhead

That's fair. Nashville and Atlanta are sprawling sunbelt cities too. So it's no surpise their metros span to less dense somewhat rural areas. The OMB's methodology isn't about a set radius, but traffic counts from adjacent counties. So if enough people in a little town on the edge closest to the core city commute to it, than Cousin Zeke on the opposite side of the county who never comes out of the woods gets lassoed in too. It doesn't matter if he doesn't believe he is a part of the core city's metro ot not. That's just how it is.

The bottom line is they use the same process. So to fixate on one city because you have an agenda is just that.

of course they use the same process, but that same process is still going to have a different effect city by city depending on how the population density shifts and how quickly. In some cases, even with the same process, the listed metro population will actually be closer to how many people are realistically part of an area/identity. That's just due to more people being bunched up closer to the city in other cities, and then a bigger dropoff(relatively) 15, 20, 25+, etc miles out......

Honestly in the case of a metro area like birmingham, you actually have portions of the city itself that actually appear fairly rural. Birmingham just doesn't have a lot of density anywhere compared to many cities.....it is what it is.

Trussville for example is much more dense than much of the dilapidated struggling areas of birmingham(even within the city proper).

Another way to look at it is imagine you are on a plane having a conversation with a passenger from Kentucky. If they ask me where I live(I live in homewood), I would say "oh, in birmingham". Or maybe at worst "oh in the birmingham area".

Someone in Calera or odenville or whatever, however, is likely to say something like "I live 30 to 35 miles outside Birmingham". Nobody from these areas(even to someone from kentucky who may only know the names of Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery in terms of alabama cities) would say they live *in* birmingham. Or even "just outside of" and probably not even "in the birmingham area". Whereas someone from homewood/mtn brook/vestavia/even hoover probably would say they live "in birmingham" or at least "in the birmingham area" or maybe "just outside of birmingham".


That difference speaks to how areas like homewood and mountain brook are clearly part of the birmingham area, and areas like Calera and Odenville aren't really. Hell extending it even further someone from Clanton is more likely to reference montgomery than Birmingham in that setting lol......

[OldBankhead]

Originally Posted by tacosman

of course they use the same process

This is really all that matters. It has nothing to do with identity or what somebody might say to someone else on a plane. You pretended to or made it obvious that you didn't understand what or how metro areas were determined and now you have pivoted to this "identity" thing which has nothing to do with the fact that Birmingham's metro area is determined with the same methodology that Atlanta's or Nashville's is. That's the only thing I was speaking to.

[tacosman]

Another example to illustrate the difference is let's look at two cities- Mcdonough, ga and Calera, Al.

They are both about the same distance from Atlanta and Birmingham, respectively(calera is maybe 3 miles farther out).

Nobody would question that Mcdonough is a sprawling suburb of atlanta. It's very extensive and identity(currently at least; I don't know the history) is tied to atlanta like andy richter was tied to conan obrien. For anyone who knew who andy richter was, we only knew him because we knew him as conan's sidekick. Just like with richter and conan, Mcdonough's identity is as of an atlanta suburb, atlanta sprawl, etc......

Calera, otoh, is just rural alabama. That's what it is. (it's actually less completely/relatively rural than other cities around there, but whatever). If birmingham were to not exist, places like Cullman would still be......rural alabama. It's identity is of that rather than being connected to or an offshoot of Birmingham's existence.

This is essentially the difference between a place clearly being "in the area" of something(mcdonough) and just being it's own little thing(Calera).

[tacosman]

Originally Posted by OldBankhead

This is really all that matters. It has nothing to do with identity or what somebody might say to someone else on a plane. You pretended to or made it obvious that you didn't understand what or how metro areas were determined and now you have pivoted to this "identity" thing which has nothing to do with the fact that Birmingham's metro area is determined with the same methodology that Atlanta's or Nashville's is. That's the only thing I was speaking to.

No, I understand very much how metro areas are determined for the purpose of the statistics one can look up. And I understand that they are the same city to city. But that doesn't mean the relative impact of that methodology won't change city to city based on a city's density and layout, and furthermore how a cencus bureau or whatever defines a metro has very little meaning or connection to what actually makes up a city's area.

[Nemean]

Originally Posted by tacosman

Another example to illustrate the difference is let's look at two cities- Mcdonough, ga and Calera, Al.

They are both about the same distance from Atlanta and Birmingham, respectively(calera is maybe 3 miles farther out).

Nobody would question that Mcdonough is a sprawling suburb of atlanta. It's very extensive and identity(currently at least; I don't know the history) is tied to atlanta like andy richter was tied to conan obrien. For anyone who knew who andy richter was, we only knew him because we knew him as conan's sidekick. Just like with richter and conan, Mcdonough's identity is as of an atlanta suburb, atlanta sprawl, etc......

Calera, otoh, is just rural alabama. That's what it is. (it's actually less completely/relatively rural than other cities around there, but whatever). If birmingham were to not exist, places like Cullman would still be......rural alabama. It's identity is of that rather than being connected to or an offshoot of Birmingham's existence.

This is essentially the difference between a place clearly being "in the area" of something(mcdonough) and just being it's own little thing(Calera).

Calera is the furthest out bit of the urban area (Note: they made definitions slightly more restrictive. Montevallo and Mulga/Warrior used to be classified as part of the urban area). It's commuting patterns and residential connectiveness really do say its a proper suburb, albeit at the limit, and I expect more tied to the Hoover area than Birmingham proper. It's really become more of an extension of the Pelham/Helena/Alabaster part of town.

One thing to note, though, is that Birmingham didn't initially develop in the same way Atlanta did. Birmingham was first a mining town. So industry was where the mines were. They couldn't all be centralized in a central area from the start. Calera, for example, started as a limestone quarry back in the 1880s. So that means, even when it was more rural, it was still quite tied to Birmingham, since that one of the ingredients for making steel. In fact, it's still an import part of the Calera area industry today. And that's part of the key difference between Atlanta and Birmingham suburbs: The original reason for a lot of Birmingham suburbs existing before they were suburbs are still valid. McDonough, for example, was a cotton warehouse and trade stop. Neither of those matter anymore, allowing Atlanta to more easily subsume it in identity. A lot of the areas eaten up by Atlanta had lost "purpose" in a sense. But just because Calera is able to hold on to a bit more of an identity, it doesn't mean it's a separate thing. It just means parts of the Birmingham area are better at forging an identity within the broader category of "the Birmingham area."