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Morrisville? The only town that would count. Unless you're talking about the section of the city of Durham that extends into Wake; or the section of the city of Raleigh that extends into Durham?
No, Cary -- the principal city of "Raleigh-Cary MSA" that extends over into both Durham and Chatham counties. So TIL Morrisville also extends across the county line, and Morrisville's Walmart sits astride the county/MSA line. I think the main cash registers are in Wake, but the garden center is in Durham.
Census LEHD data were pointing to >25% of Durham's workers commuting in from Wake pre-pandemic; in 2017, 32.4% of Durham Co workers lived in Wake vs. only 30.4% in Durham. The 2020 WFH numbers likely tanked that by the time it came to redo the MSA delineations, given that ~30% of the Triangle's workforce was working from home in 2021 -- a 20 percentage point increase over 2019, and way higher than the national figure of 18.8%.
The 2020 federal MSA delineation standards recognize that the mid-decade update could be well and truly messed up by WFH, with a great many counties falling below minimum commute thresholds:
Quote:
changing societal and economic trends may warrant considering changes in the 2030 standards... OMB will reconvene the Standards Review Committee to conduct a full review of intercounty connectivity measures before 2028, and to advise OMB on whether pandemic-related changes in commuting patterns warrant any adjustments to the standards prior to the mid-decade update in 2028 to minimize the risk of unintended and potentially temporary pandemic-related changes to the CBSAs in 2028.
Summit County OH, counties where workers are employed:
2021: 52% Summit, 20.2% Cuyahoga
2019: 54.3% Summit, 18.8% Cuyahoga
Only the northern reaches of this county are Cleveland suburbia. A majority of workers still work within the county, either in Akron, its suburbs, or even in northern Summit. This is still far from reaching the 25% threshold, especially given slow overall growth.
Once again, it's very tough to clear that 25% threshold when the county itself contains major job centers. It's not that difficult for truly "outlying" counties to export workers.
No, Cary -- the principal city of "Raleigh-Cary MSA" that extends over into both Durham and Chatham counties. So TIL Morrisville also extends across the county line, and Morrisville's Walmart sits astride the county/MSA line. I think the main cash registers are in Wake, but the garden center is in Durham.
Census LEHD data were pointing to >25% of Durham's workers commuting in from Wake pre-pandemic; in 2017, 32.4% of Durham Co workers lived in Wake vs. only 30.4% in Durham. The 2020 WFH numbers likely tanked that by the time it came to redo the MSA delineations, given that ~30% of the Triangle's workforce was working from home in 2021 -- a 20 percentage point increase over 2019, and way higher than the national figure of 18.8%.
The 2020 federal MSA delineation standards recognize that the mid-decade update could be well and truly messed up by WFH, with a great many counties falling below minimum commute thresholds:
That is the issue with the Triangle.... the fact that Wake is the largest county (by far)...but that Durham has more in-bound commuting from Wake than vice-versa because RTP is mostly within Durham County. It isn't that there aren't enough people commuting between the two counties (more people commute between them than any other two counties in the state)...it's that the commuters go "the wrong way" for how OMB categorizes the "core" county.
Thanks for taking the time to post the OMB standards, though my guess is that most of us in this thread are very familiar with them.
Read those 2 articles I posted upstream about the proposed Cleve/Akron/Canton MSA. Akron officials want NO part of it! Are you telling me that the OMB would merge the Cleve/Akron MSAs against Akron’s wishes? Even if the interchange is over 25%, it doesn’t matter because Akron officials are against it. And if the merger were to occur, Akron would definitely file a lawsuit. This is not difficult to understand!
Yes.
Akron officials would be free to file a lawsuit in such a case, but it wouldn't matter. I'm curious as to why you think it would especially since we're talking about Akron here, not Atlanta or Austin.
Akron officials would be free to file a lawsuit in such a case, but it wouldn't matter. I'm curious as to why you think it would especially since we're talking about Akron here, not Atlanta or Austin.
Yeah, it's a little farfetched to think The White House, of all places, is scared to death of upsetting the all-powerful City of Akron, Ohio.
To the extent that there are federal funds tied to MSA definitions, they're almost always just to allocate funds to non-metro (rural) areas, or sometimes to principal cities (and Akron would remain a named principal city). Neither of those situations would change one red cent. To file suit in court requires proving injury, and... what would that injury be?
I'm laughing at the idea that Akron's opinion would mean anything. The whole point of the designations is they follow a certain set of rules. Blunt though they may be.
Akron wouldn't sue if their Metropolitan Area were to merge with Cleveland, though the numbers don't make it seem like that is in any way imminent.
I don't think Akron/Summit County would sue either if they merged because a combined Cleveland-Akron would surpass 2.5 million which is what is needed for an MSA to form metro divisions. A Cleveland-Akron MSA would surely be divided into a Cleveland metro division and an Akron metro division. Akron would get its name in the new MSA and it will still retain its separation due to the metro division status. Those metro divisions would be identical to each's current MSA population.
The question then would be whether Canton also would meet the threshold and be another metro division. From looking at numbers, it would be close and dependent on how many counties would be considered core.
I also think it is more likely that if Cleveland and Akron meet the criteria to combine, there would simply be some tweaks to the formula via political pull to keep some of these other disputed ones separate. This isn't saying that Akron is so important, but it does seem like the Cleveland-Akron relationship (along with Raleigh-Durham) are part of the blueprint that goes into how the algorithm is decided.
A) Cleveland-Akron were originally going to be in the same original grouping when the MSA equivalent was created in the 1950s and Lorain-Elyria (Lorain County) was going to be its own entity. But Akron wanted to be separate so it got its own MSA and Lorain County was instead included with Cleveland.
B) The two met the original 15 percent threshold in the 1980s when commuting became the determining factor and were combined, but then the commuting formula was upped to 25 percent and the two were re-separated in the 90s (believe the same thing happened with Raleigh-Durham).
We'll see what happens, but it seems likely that Summit County will eventually reach the clear-cut 25 percent threshold into the core Cleveland counties (Cuyahoga, Lorain, Lake). It was at 17.7 percent in 2002 according to On the Map numbers and now is at 22.2 percent according to their latest 2021 numbers. At that pace, it's still a little more than a decade away. However, Sherwin-Williams moving its R&D facilty to the old VA site in Brecksville and getting the Miller Road interchange upgrades on I-77 will more than likely speed things up. The psuedo Miller Road exit ramp was basically useless for anybody coming from Summit County because the only way to get to Miller from I-77 is from the southbound lane (from Cuyahoga). Then the only on-ramp from Miller was northbound. Adding a Northbound exit ramp and a southbound on-ramp is going have housing developers fighting for that formerly "middle-of-nowhere" land in northern Richfield. I have a feeling that area is about to boom like you saw in Macedonia, Northfield, Hudson in the 90s when they turned Route 8 from a divided highway with traffic lights to interstate standards.
Overall, it is ridiculous with all the tools available that MSAs are still determined on an all or nothing county level. If you take away county lines, it's actually pretty easy to tell which areas are more Cleveland and which are more Akron. If that was done standard throughout the country it would be much more accurate (and resemble urban area numbers).
No, Cary -- the principal city of "Raleigh-Cary MSA" that extends over into both Durham and Chatham counties. So TIL Morrisville also extends across the county line, and Morrisville's Walmart sits astride the county/MSA line. I think the main cash registers are in Wake, but the garden center is in Durham.
Census LEHD data were pointing to >25% of Durham's workers commuting in from Wake pre-pandemic; in 2017, 32.4% of Durham Co workers lived in Wake vs. only 30.4% in Durham. The 2020 WFH numbers likely tanked that by the time it came to redo the MSA delineations, given that ~30% of the Triangle's workforce was working from home in 2021 -- a 20 percentage point increase over 2019, and way higher than the national figure of 18.8%.
The 2020 federal MSA delineation standards recognize that the mid-decade update could be well and truly messed up by WFH, with a great many counties falling below minimum commute thresholds:
It's possible that "working in the office" will actually increase by 2030. Here, based on traffic density in the mornings and late afternoons, it appears to be heavier than it was a year or two ago. It'll be interesting to see how metros are redefined by they time they decide what to do.
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