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Old Posted Feb 12, 2021, 5:23 PM
Manitopiaaa Manitopiaaa is offline
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White House Office of Management and Budget Seeks Public Comment on new MSA Standards

This forum is big on MSA/CSA analysis, so wanted to share that on January 19, 2021, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued its formal call for public comments in advance of the June 2023 delineations being determined.



You can find the notice, and provide public comments, here: https://www.federalregister.gov/docu...view-committee

Here are the changes being "recommended" (aka, what will be adopted unless there is significant public comment backlash):

Quote:
The committee made the following recommendations in their report to OMB, available as a supplemental document to this Notice at www.regulations.gov:

(1) The minimum urban area population to qualify a metropolitan statistical area should be increased from 50,000 to 100,000 (see Appendix, Part A: Table 1 for a list of current metropolitan statistical areas likely to be among those that would be affected by this recommendation).

(2) The delineation of New England city and town areas (NECTAs), NECTA divisions, and combined NECTAs should be discontinued.

(3) Research should be undertaken on an additional, territorially exhaustive classification that covers all of the United States and Puerto Rico.

(4) The first annual delineation update of the coming decade should be combined with the decennial-based delineations.

(5) OMB should make publicly available a schedule for updates to the core based statistical areas (see proposed update schedule below).

(6) OMB should continue use of American Community Survey commuting data in measurement of intercounty connectivity, though changing societal and economic trends may warrant considering changes in the 2030 standards.
I don't have any major heartburn, though I'm sure New Englanders will be pissed about #2 and ~33% of MSAs could be demoted to micropolitan under #1.
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  #2  
Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 12:12 AM
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Good. Are places still considered "urban" if they have 2,500 people?
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 12:42 AM
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(6) OMB should continue use of American Community Survey commuting data in measurement of intercounty connectivity, though changing societal and economic trends may warrant considering changes in the 2030 standards.
i hadn't yet given much thought to how covid and the subsequent WFH avalanche might change commuting patterns going forward.

will there be enough of a commuting shift to actually demote some borderline counties from being included in certain MSAs?

or possibly even blow apart a CSA or two?
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 6:58 AM
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Stop using Counties would be one way to improve the methodology. Outside of the NE, counties are just too large. I supposed census blocks and block groups would just complicate things too much. Counties are easier but they lead to weird results in areas with huge counties that are as large as some east coast states (or break up large counties already).
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 10:52 AM
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Originally Posted by dave8721 View Post
Stop using Counties would be one way to improve the methodology. Outside of the NE, counties are just too large. I supposed census blocks and block groups would just complicate things too much. Counties are easier but they lead to weird results in areas with huge counties that are as large as some east coast states (or break up large counties already).
But why that matters anyway? It’s an oddity to have those rural counties added to Dallas or Atlanta but they increase their population by few thousands only.

On the other hand, to me it’s much more problematic to have Fairfield County outside New York metro area or Inland Empire outside LA’s.
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 10:54 AM
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Originally Posted by jtown,man View Post
Good. Are places still considered "urban" if they have 2,500 people?
I always thought that “rural” should be a person living on farms. If it’s a village, regardless how tiny it is, that’s “urban” to me.
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 12:24 PM
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the new standards will be designed by a committee of 10 forumers of an obscure skyscraper website, including 5 Canadians, one Brazilian, and one Londoner.
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 12:31 PM
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Originally Posted by dc_denizen View Post
the new standards will be designed by a committee of 10 forumers of an obscure skyscraper website, including 5 Canadians, one Brazilian, and one Londoner.
And arguably, the only people who care enough.
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 3:19 PM
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Originally Posted by jtown,man View Post
Good. Are places still considered "urban" if they have 2,500 people?
Only if those places are at least 60% black.
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 3:31 PM
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How about just do away with the whole federal-level attempt at assigning finite borders to a nebulous blob which crosses over state lines and in some cases shifts over time back and forth between major city nodes?
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 8:15 PM
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Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
How about just do away with the whole federal-level attempt at assigning finite borders to a nebulous blob which crosses over state lines and in some cases shifts over time back and forth between major city nodes?
You could argue that the practice has been terrible for some (many?) cities, and has masked some serious flaws to local governance.
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 8:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
I always thought that “rural” should be a person living on farms. If it’s a village, regardless how tiny it is, that’s “urban” to me.
Also many small towns in the US are more "urban" than sprawlburbs are. Like take this random town of 1200 people in Illinois: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7537...!7i3328!8i1664
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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 8:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
Also many small towns in the US are more "urban" than sprawlburbs are. Like take this random town of 1200 people in Illinois: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7537...!7i3328!8i1664
or this small Illinois town of 3,200 people: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4164...7i13312!8i6656

or this tiny michigan town of only 500 people: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.8482...7i13312!8i6656

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Old Posted Feb 13, 2021, 11:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
or this small Illinois town of 3,200 people: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4164...7i13312!8i6656

or this tiny michigan town of only 500 people: https://www.google.com/maps/@45.8482...7i13312!8i6656

Wow, Galena looks incredibly intact and economically vibrant for a small, rural, midwestern town. What's going on out there?
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Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 12:11 AM
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Isn't Galena where Grant is from?
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  #16  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 12:27 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
How about just do away with the whole federal-level attempt at assigning finite borders to a nebulous blob which crosses over state lines and in some cases shifts over time back and forth between major city nodes?
Because hundreds of billions of dollars annually get disbursed as formula grants based on these arbitrary definitions. The Census doesn't spend millions on this for no reason. It has a major fiscal impact. We just care about it because we like to dick measure our cities, but that's not even its purpose.

Just read a few of the comments so far: https://beta.regulations.gov/documen...1-0001/comment

Here's a comment about what just the change of Saint Joseph, Missouri, from MSA to Micro will mean for them: https://beta.regulations.gov/comment/OMB-2021-0001-0015

The OMB nominee was even asked about these regulations during her confirmation hearing by a Western Senator. It's definitely important.
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  #17  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 12:38 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PoshSteve View Post
Wow, Galena looks incredibly intact and economically vibrant for a small, rural, midwestern town. What's going on out there?
Galena is one of the Midwestern jewels. Its Main Street is even listed on the Ultimate USA bucket list I use when planning my travels: https://www.listchallenges.com/the-u...rs-list/list/2

The short answer is that Galena was blessed with the holy grail supply of galena, the "most important ore of lead and an important source of silver":



By the mid-1800s it was producing over 80% of America's lead in its mines. It grew incredibly prosperous and was able to build one of the best main streets in America:



When lead declined, it pivoted to tourism and, though less prosperous, has done quite well for itself as a result.

That whole part of the U.S. is very underrated. Another gem is the much bigger Dubuque:



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Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 1:12 AM
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Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa View Post
Because hundreds of billions of dollars annually get disbursed as formula grants based on these arbitrary definitions. The Census doesn't spend millions on this for no reason. It has a major fiscal impact. We just care about it because we like to dick measure our cities, but that's not even its purpose.
Right, but those billions are dispersed geographically, based on urban-rural designation and core-based statistical areas, to states and muncipalities. Not to MSAs or CSAs as a whole, which very often spread across state lines.
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  #19  
Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 1:50 AM
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Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
Right, but those billions are dispersed geographically, based on urban-rural designation and core-based statistical areas, to states and muncipalities. Not to MSAs or CSAs as a whole, which very often spread across state lines.
Generally yes, but the threshold for a lot of these grants, especially HUD and DOT is based on being in MSAs of a certain size.

Here's an example of a grant to community newspapers, for example:



There are hundreds of grants within the legislative canon that have stipulations like that. So you can think of these MSA definitions as the weed-out course. Then, the formula grant doles out to cities, counties, state. A city within an MSA of 100,000 people unlocks far more Federal goodies than a city in an MSA of 97,842.

Another one:

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Old Posted Feb 14, 2021, 2:36 AM
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Originally Posted by PoshSteve View Post
Wow, Galena looks incredibly intact and economically vibrant for a small, rural, midwestern town. What's going on out there?
Tourism.
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