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Atlanta has a single Alabama county (Chambers), and it's via the micropolitan LaGrange to the southwest of Atlanta. It's more that it's en route to Auburn, which is a popular back up school for Georgians, even though it's in Alabama (Auburn/LaGrange have an easier time accessing the Atlanta airport than some parts of the Atlanta metro). If sprawl goes even more crazy, though, I could see Clay or Randolph counties joining the Atlanta MSA directly (They're in the Atlanta market area and the Talladega National Forest blocks off Alabama cities from sprawling into them. More likely Cleburne, as it's on I-20. East of Talladega NF and west of the western ATL suburbs is really the main "unclaimed" rural part. The rest of the rural is more purposefully so. Think mountain retreats and lake towns.).
Bryan County, OK is just on the border, and is a second layer away from the Dallas MSA proper. It's probably more due to Sherman than Dallas itself, as Durant has easy highway access to it.
Durant has grown due to. Big casino that is closest to Dallas though not DFW. Also a micro Steel recycling plant worth half a billion landed in durant to get out of texas but be close to DFW. Same is true of cardinal goass. I don’t knw the attraction to Oklahoma vs Texas but Durant had gotten a lot of Dallas focused buig investments the ast years.
Sherman is poised to soar though as Ti is building a microchip facility there with an almost $40Billion investment half of which completes and comes on line 2025. For perspective Sherman property tax base before this pant is less than $4Billion.
There are more jobs in durant than Elle so workers travel in from Texas to work there. Many of its jobs pay is from sales across the country or at least oit of the state so lots of new dollars coming in nt jut recycling dollars already there.
Atlanta has a single Alabama county (Chambers), and it's via the micropolitan LaGrange to the southwest of Atlanta. It's more that it's en route to Auburn, which is a popular back up school for Georgians, even though it's in Alabama (Auburn/LaGrange have an easier time accessing the Atlanta airport than some parts of the Atlanta metro). If sprawl goes even more crazy, though, I could see Clay or Randolph counties joining the Atlanta MSA directly (They're in the Atlanta market area and the Talladega National Forest blocks off Alabama cities from sprawling into them. More likely Cleburne, as it's on I-20. East of Talladega NF and west of the western ATL suburbs is really the main "unclaimed" rural part. The rest of the rural is more purposefully so. Think mountain retreats and lake towns.).
Bryan County, OK is just on the border, and is a second layer away from the Dallas MSA proper. It's probably more due to Sherman than Dallas itself, as Durant has easy highway access to it.
I used to live in Chambers County. The area is heavily influenced by Atlanta.
I feel like 2022 was the last year of the pandemic era. It will be really interesting to see the 2024 numbers in a year from now. It's possible they could look a lot different. It feels like Austin finally slowed down a bit in 2023, but it's hard to say for sure.
Note: I assume these estimates are supposed to be as of Jan 1, 2023? I actually have no idea.
Ok I finally got around to playing with numbers. I created a data set of the top 100. These screen shots are NOT a one to one comparison from the census data. I combined a few areas based on my logic, and I understand that some folks may disagree. Just consider this the LoL90 top 100.
I combined the following MSA's for this list. Based on my personal interpretation they are only statistically separated, but not truly separate markets: Bridgeport into New York
Riverside and Oxnard into Los Angeles
San Jose into San Francisco
Ann Arbor into Detroit
Akron into Cleveland
Boulder into Denver
Durham into Raleigh
Slidell into New Orleans
Boston folks please forgive me. I only added Worcester into Boston. There are several other MSAs that I think could logically be lumped in, but I am the least familiar with the NE so I need some education on it.
I did not add Baltimore in with Washington, or Providence in with Boston for 2 reasons.
1. These are metro's that have grown into each other. I consider that different than suburbs that have become economically distinct enough to shift commuter patterns from a core metro like Riverside.
2. Pretty much all metro's in the Bos-Wash corridor blend. It's not an easy task to decide where to draw that line.
I also looked at how groups of metro's performed based on region. It was pretty straight forward, but I struggled whether to place Richmond and Norfolk in my New South, or Old South charts. I ultimately decided to put them in the old south. I'm sure that will lead to some pushback, but oh well. This is city-data and you just cant please every body
Thanks for the charts it was some interesting data to look at. Curious to know how folks familiar with these regions feel about your combinations. I agree with your LA and Bay Area combinations. I know how close Raleigh and Durham are, but folks familiar with the areas seem to have pretty distinct opinions about if they should be considered one metro or not. Folks from the RDU area seem to argue yes, where as I've seen a few less biased folks say that Raleigh's MSA population at 1.5 million is more appropriate.
Also curious as to why you combined the above MSAs, but did not lump the Salt Lake City corridor together?
Thanks for the charts it was some interesting data to look at. Curious to know how folks familiar with these regions feel about your combinations. I agree with your LA and Bay Area combinations. I know how close Raleigh and Durham are, but folks familiar with the areas seem to have pretty distinct opinions about if they should be considered one metro or not. Folks from the RDU area seem to argue yes, where as I've seen a few less biased folks say that Raleigh's MSA population at 1.5 million is more appropriate.
Also curious as to why you combined the above MSAs, but did not lump the Salt Lake City corridor together?
The largest employment hub in the area straddles both Wake and Durham Counties. The strongest commuting ties between any counties in NC are between Wake and Durham. Raleigh is suburban and built-out postwar (therefore the downtown is not huge, which is what most tourists note), but it’s a single MSA for all intents and purposes. They are separated out by a quirk.
Thanks for the charts it was some interesting data to look at. Curious to know how folks familiar with these regions feel about your combinations. I agree with your LA and Bay Area combinations. I know how close Raleigh and Durham are, but folks familiar with the areas seem to have pretty distinct opinions about if they should be considered one metro or not. Folks from the RDU area seem to argue yes, where as I've seen a few less biased folks say that Raleigh's MSA population at 1.5 million is more appropriate.
Also curious as to why you combined the above MSAs, but did not lump the Salt Lake City corridor together?
I know you're well traveled, I'm surprised you've never been to The Triangle...
My position has always been, that the Raleigh + Durham MSAs are indicative of the size of the region, but that the size of the region isn't a realistic view of the city of Raleigh, in the sense that if you took that ~2.1M region to view as "Raleigh", you'd be of the mind that Raleigh would feel comparably sized to:
Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Columbus, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, San Jose;
But if you compared it to the cities based on its MSA population:
Jacksonville, Providence, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Louisville, Richmond, Memphis;
you'd instantly sense that Raleigh city feels closer in size to the cities in its MSA group, rather than the cities its CSA would place it with...
Now, with that said, there's nuance in all these things. I was in Nashville a month ago and am headed back tomorrow, and in truth Nashville only feels marginally larger than Raleigh, because it has a larger, more vibrant downtown, but it isn't that much larger, I think the "real feel" gap between Charlotte and Nashville, while not tremendous either, is a larger gap than between Nashville and Raleigh and I'd definitely argue that Core Raleigh is virtually even with Core Nashville in terms of built form and vibrancy overall, and that once you leave the cores of both into the outer areas of each city, Raleigh is far more developed over a larger area as both cities have quite small cores...
So I think Raleigh feels maybe a step behind Nashville, but still a couple steps behind the other cities in Nashville's weight class, and what keeps Nashville in that weight class is that because of its downtown it feels appropriately sized by its MSA...
I think its similar to, I've heard people say Milwaukee feels a little larger than it's MSA (never been, so how large?). I think CSA Salt Lake is more indicative of the size of SLC's region, but just like Raleigh I think the city of Salt Lake is somewhat larger than its MSA, but not quite what CSA Salt Lake would suggest...
Salt Lake, I'd also put in a category closing in on Nashville in real feel, but not really on the level of those cities larger than Nashville...
I think it's fun and interesting to look at how we rank cities, because there is no "one size fits all" measure and that if someone strictly chooses a data measure to stick to, you miss some real world intangibles that aren't quite captured on paper. All in all, I think Salt Lake, Raleigh, and Jacksonville have outgrown former peers like Richmond, Louisville, and Memphis, to form kind of their own sub-tier of city, as they aren't quite on the range of the next group of cities above them yet. If you've been to Milwaukee I'd be interested to hear what Milwaukee feels more comparable to, my sub-range of Rgh/Jax/SLC that is a half-step/step behind Nashville, or if Mke already feels the size of Nashville, Indy, the Ohio cities, etc...
New Orleans does seem to be shorted by removing Slidell from its MSA, and people from Detroit, Cleveland, abd Denver, mostly seem to feel like Ann Arbor, Akron, Boulder belong combined with them. Though of those three, I've been to Cleveland, just like SLC and Rgh, I think MSA Cleveland is more representative of what Cleveland feels like than if you gave it Akron---->I don't at all Cleveland feels comparably sized to Charlotte or Baltimore...
The largest employment hub in the area straddles both Wake and Durham Counties. The strongest commuting ties between any counties in NC are between Wake and Durham. Raleigh is suburban and built-out postwar (therefore the downtown is not huge, which is what most tourists note), but it’s a single MSA for all intents and purposes. They are separated out by a quirk.
It's one MSA...
The typical CD poster refers to MSAs as cities. While Raleigh-Durham is one MSA, I think it's erroneous to view that MSA as what "Raleigh" feels like, though that may not hold more than the next decade as I think realistically and functionally Raleigh is closing in on Nashville...
I'm consistent, because I also feel this way about Salt Lake, and I also feel that way Cleveland. Their CSA designations are representative of the size of the region, but not the city...
The typical CD poster refers to MSAs as cities. While Raleigh-Durham is one MSA, I think it's erroneous to view that MSA as what "Raleigh" feels like, though that may not hold more than the next decade as I think realistically and functionally Raleigh is closing in on Nashville...
I'm consistent, because I also feel this way about Salt Lake, and I also feel that way Cleveland. Their CSA designations are representative of the size of the region, but not the city...
But by the same token, when someone says Atlanta, they are envisioning the MSA not just the city of Atlanta. And it’s understood that when talking about Minneapolis, St. Paul is lumped in there. Now Durham is bigger than Marietta, and isn’t across the River like St. Paul. But essentially it functions in a similar manner to both, a smaller part of a larger region. Likewise no one gets up in arms for Spartanburg when Greenville is used as shorthand for Upstate. Raleigh-Durham seems to be put under an exhausting microscope for reasons separate from most any other place in the country.
Looking at some of these CSAs. They are way overboard. Heck you might as well add Beaumont and College Station to Houston. Add San Antonio to Austin etc. You could possibly even argue that Philladelphia should be added to either DC or NYC.
Some of those CSAs look more like a region or a corridor or even media market.
I think to get the real feel you would need to look at Urban Area numbers.
The problem with urbanized areas is they are essentially frozen from a generation ago. So even if UA run into each other and meet criteria to be combined, the rules stipulate that for example Concord and Charlotte remain separate UA.
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CSAs
