Your Projected 2030 CSA Rankings (vs. 2018 CSA Estimates)
 

2018 CSA Estimates:

1. New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA Combined Statistical Area
3. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area
4. Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area
5. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area
6. Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area
7. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area
8. Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area
9. Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area
10. Miami-Port St. Lucie-Fort Lauderdale, FL Combined Statistical Area
11. Atlanta–Athens-Clarke County–Sandy Springs, GA-AL Combined Statistical Area
12. Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI Combined Statistical Area
13. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ Combined Statistical Area
14. Seattle-Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area
15. Orlando-Lakeland-Deltona, FL Combined Statistical Area
16. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI Combined Statistical Area
17. Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area
18. Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area
19. Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area
20. St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL Combined Statistical Area


My 2030 Projections:

1. New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA Combined Statistical Area
3. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area
4. Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area
5. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area
6. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area
7. Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area
8. Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area
9. Miami-Port St. Lucie-Fort Lauderdale, FL Combined Statistical Area
10. Atlanta–Athens-Clarke County–Sandy Springs, GA-AL Combined Statistical Area
11. Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area
12. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ Combined Statistical Area
13. Seattle-Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area
14. Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI Combined Statistical Area
15. Orlando-Lakeland-Deltona, FL Combined Statistical Area
16. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI Combined Statistical Area
17. Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area
18. Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area
19. Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area
20. Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC Combined Statistical Area

I would move Boston below DFW and Houston for 2030. These two cities are projected to add a lot more in that time frame.

I can imagine San Antonio giving Charlotte a run for that number 20 slot by 2030.

I already have Boston below DFW for 2030.

Although Houston is on fire, I don't think Houston will surpass Boston by 2030. Unlike NYC & Philly, Boston's CSA is still growing at a decent clip, and is already 1 million+ ahead of Houston's.

2018 CSA Estimates & % Change From 2010:

6. Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area
8,285,407
+4.97%

9. Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area
7,197,883
+17.72%

Arbitrary silliness.

Sure, if "arbitrary" means "based on factual data and documented growth trends that actually exist".

How does one separate NYC CSA from Philadelphia CSA “based on factual data and documented growth trends that actually exist” in a manner that is not arbitrary?

How does one separate Alabama from Georgia “based on factual data and documented growth trends that actually exist” in a manner that is not arbitrary?

How does one separate Canada from the United States “based on factual data and documented growth trends that actually exist” in a manner that is not arbitrary?

How does one separate the Pacific Ocean from the Southern Ocean “based on factual data and documented growth trends that actually exist” in a manner that is not arbitrary?

Your point? :rolleyes:

You just proved it

Great, thrilled to know that anything that can be proven based on factual data and documented trends that actually exist is synonymous with arbitrary silliness.

Again, how does one separate NYC CSA from Philadelphia CSA?

It's a legitimate question. If there is factual data and documented trends, as you state, to prove that it can be done without being arbitrary, then I'm seriously interested in understanding how.

For example, why is Trenton officially part of NYC when geographically and functionally it is much more closely associated with Philly? And considering that Bucks County displays major commuting patterns into the NYC metro area, why is it solely part of Philly? Is the Delaware River the dividing line? If so, why is Allentown part of NYC? :shrug: It's all BS. The answer is, you cannot separate the two via non-arbitrary means. Where do you split Jersey?

Phoenix doesn't have a CSA. It's MSA will likely pass Boston by 2020.

There's no reason to believe Texas cities won't slow down, especially compared to high tax, older established cities.

13

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_statistical_area

Being the giant nerd that I am, I pretty much have the CSA/MSA rankings memorized. :redface: Something seemed off when I saw that 2018 list. Orlando jumped up a bunch of spots and is now in between Minneapolis/St Paul and Seattle/Tacoma somehow? I looked it up to make sure I'm not crazy. Perhaps someone made some wacky edits to some wikipedia articles? The Census Bureau's data doesn't match the wikipedia articles for CSA's or Primary Statistical Areas.

Is that new? I had no idea.

And if that includes Payson, Arizona -- LOL. Payson has nothing to do with Phoenix. It's at the base of the Mogollon Rim in an Alpine region, with heavy snow in the winter months. I used to sleep in cabin at Kohl's Ranch.

Yeah, I thought the 4 million+ figure for Orlando's CSA seemed at least 1 to 1.5 million too high.

I also thought it was strange that Austin wasn't listed. Is it not a part of a CSA?

CSA definitions were redefined last October. Orlando gained Lakeland, Phoenix got a CSA, and Austin lost its CSA in 2013 when Marble Falls was removed.

Houston is already slowing down to some extent and the rest of Texas could as well as the rest of the country improves economically opening up more options for people to work/ live rather than just the sunbelt cities. I just think it will at least top Boston in the next 10-11 years. I lived there (briefly) and much of the region is pretty stagnant where as virtually everything within 75 miles of downtown (Houston) is growing. Boston and the area around it is just loaded with tons of decent sized MSA's in their own right; Providence; Worcester, Nashua, Manchester, etc...

As of 2018, the Boston CSA had approximately 1,087,524 more residents than the Houston CSA (8,285,407 vs. 7,197,883).

Houston's CSA gained approximately 1,083,321 residents between 2010 and 2018.

Boston's CSA gained approximately 392,031 residents between 2010 and 2018.

So even if Boston's CSA only gained half as many residents (196,015) between 2018 and 2030 - a 12 year period - as it did during that 8 year period, Houston's CSA (which is slowing down as you already noted) would have to gain 1,283,539 residents between 2018 and 2030 just to tie Boston's CSA, and both of those scenarios appear unlikely.

Yup. San Diego is the only 3M+ geography that is not a CSA and if it ever adds El Centro that could change but idk

EDIT: Tampa too is not a CSA yet

Do you know when Phoenix received a CSA designation? The difference between MSA and CSA is less than 54,000.

2018: CSA: 4,911,851 [includes Gila County, pop 53,000]
2018: MSA: 4,857,962

Phoenix is more connected to Yavapai County [pop 235,000] - Prescott, than Gila.
Prescott - Phoenix - Tucson - Nogales is part of the Arizona Sun Corridor Megapolitan region.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ighlighted.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Sun_Corridor

Some milestones for Metro Phoenix will likely be hit in 2020:
1] Phoenix: 1.7 million
2] Mesa: 500,000
3] There will be 4 more suburbs that exceed 250,000
4] Keep an eye on Buckeye, for explosive growth this decade. Currently around over 80,000 [up from 6,500 in the year 2000] with a planning area of 650 square miles, much larger than the city of Phoenix.

Houston has slowed because it is still dependent on energy prices (at least it did not go into a depression like the 80s). Will Austin and San Antonio be combined into a CSA? It's odd that Boston-Providence and DC-Baltimore are CSA, but Chicago-Rockford-Milwaukee are not.

Assuming US population projections come somewhat true, those people have to live somewhere. Texas has the land and the business climate to absorb a large share of those people. Old New England, does not.

Not really.

Downtown to downtown, Boston/Providence & DC/Baltimore are in the 30 - 40 mile range (as the crow flies).

Downtown Chicago to downtown Milwaukee is 81 miles. Distance matters.

Per an earlier post:

Is there a definitive separation between Chicago and Milwaukee? Like, where to Chicago’s northern suburbs end and Milwaukee’s southern suburbs begin? And, do the CSA dividing lines make sense?

A distance example in the case of NYC and Philadelphia...

Allentown to Philadelphia: 60 miles
Allentown to New York: 90 miles
Allentown: part of NYC CSA

Trenton to Philadelphia: 35 miles
Trenton to New York: 65 miles
Trenton: part of NYC CSA

Not only are these two metro areas much closer distance-wise, they are also much more closely affiliated with Philly, in terms of culture, media, commuting, sports team allegiances, retail, accent, architecture, etc.

NYC and Philadelphia are a single, huge CSA in reality, if what the OMB determines NYC’s “territory” to be is somehow accurate.

Well... That's annoying.

Here's my projection for 2030: The whole list will be randomly shuffled around because a bunch of definitions got changed, lol.

Based on daily commute data alone, it certainly should; that said, downtown to downtown is ~79 miles, and although the unofficial I-35 southernmost and northernmost outskirts cities of Kyle (Austin) and Schertz (San Antonio) are separated by only 43 miles, the case could be made that the distance between the two metros is still a bit too far.

Chicago's CSA includes Kenosha as its northern extent. Milwaukee's CSA includes Racine as its southern extent. Kenosha and Racine are 10 miles apart.

For all intents and purposes, Chicago and Milwaukee are unofficially apart of the same general metro area or region. The commuting numbers don't yet meet the threshold as an official CSA. Residents have fairly easy access to each others amenities. For instance, Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee is considered "Chicago's third airport", while O'Hare provides international access to residents of Milwaukee. Culturally, they are still two distinct cities and I would imagine the same is true with Philly and New York.

Interesting, thanks for the info.

And yes, Philly and New York are definitely culturally distinct (and I would imagine quite a bit more so than in the case of Chicago and Milwaukee). And that's what makes it all the more silly to have Trenton and Allentown considered a part of NYC area... when they are FAR more culturally akin to Philadelphia.

Distance matters but it’s not everything.

Just as Texas cities are much larger geographically than older northeastern cities, similarly CSA sizes can vary

If Milwaukee and Chicago area people start acting like they belong in one region, then that’s what really matters. I have no idea if we are there yet, I’m just making a general point.

For example, in my years living in DC, Baltimore felt like a completely different city. I could care less if they are 40 miles apart, I still have a hard time viewing them as a combined metro. Silicon Valley and SF, however, feel like they are far more connected.

Anyhow, CSA is kind of silly to me. It just seems like smaller cities’ way to feel like they are huge or something.

I can understand living in DC and Baltimore feeling like a completely different city. Because it IS a completely different city.

But the two cities are completely connected. All the many suburbs between them completely blend together. But when living in DC, if you didn't spend much time in the PG or Howard or AA county DC/Baltimore suburbs, you wouldn't really feel like they are that connected. But they totally are.

Totally silly. And I'd say that CSA is also a way for really big cities to attempt to feel even bigger... case in point being Allentown metro area added to NYC in 2013, even though parts of that metro are like 130 miles away from NYC and through mountains and farms. Might as well just say that all of eastern PA is now part of NYC. I think NYC just wants to maintain its "lead" over the LA CSA :haha:

I didn’t notice, because when I lived in DC I was a car-lite urbanite and rarely visited Maryland other than to pass through. And when I did, Baltimore felt like a distinct entity.

The whole “suburbs blend together” is a very slippery slope. We might was well say that the entire northeast is one massive metro, if we continue to go down that path.

And it serves little use. Suburbs are just a jumble of housing subdivisions nowadays anyhow. Cities are the places with real identity, at least cities largely built out before WWII. Whatever “flag” a suburb wears is beyond the point. There are people in Waukegan or Zion, IL who spend most of their time going up to Milwaukee, while there may be Oak Creek, WI who go to Chicago a lot.

Point being, we are better off narrowing down the definition of a city/metro rather than trying to expand it, which leads to a lot of splitting hairs.

This is the "border" between the Chicago and Miwaukee CSA's: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6676.../data=!3m1!1e3

Can we just combine Washington to Boston as one giant CSA already and move on?

I would totally agree that Baltimore is a distinct entity from DC... they're different. I think that would be the case regardless of which city was "paired" with Washington DC. It's likely magnified because DC is what it is. Baltimore and DC obviously function differently, but they're also two very old, large cities with centuries of their own histories and culture -- they just fully grew physically together in the age of the auto.

I think you see can distinct differences within other MSAs/CSAs too. Dallas-Ft. Worth comes to mind as two distinct larger cities that grew together.

Yeah, I agree that the "suburbs blend together" descriptor can be problematic because... yeah, where do you draw the dividing line? I also think that narrowing the definition is much more informative. And maybe it could result in people who live in outer exubrbs claiming that they are "from" ________ (enter city name). :haha:

There is a bit of a break in connection between the overall Boston-anchored portion and New York and between the overall Philly-anchored portion and Batimore though. Philadelphia and New York "share" Jersey between them and are more closely connected than Philly is to Baltimore and New York is to Boston.

But based on how the OMB arbitrarily assigns CSA classification in the east coast corridor's case, yeah, why not just combine it all? That's no sillier than what they do now.

San Marcos is the southermost Austin suburb and New Braunfels is the northernmost San Antonio suburb, and they are only about five miles apart on I-35.

Lived in both cities for years, continue to visit both regularly and beg to disagree that those represent each respective cities' southernmost and northernmost suburbs.

Further, there have always been - and continue to be - noticeable development gaps between Kyle and San Marcos, between San Marcos and New Braunfels, and between New Braunfels and Schertz (regardless of how few miles separate them).

New Braunfels/ San Marcos would seem connected to San Antonio/ Austin receptively if the latter were the size of Houston or Dallas but they are so much smaller and compact metros (there's a lot of nothing in SATX's city limits) that the cities along 35 and right around there, Buda, Seguin, etc. feel like their own region. My suburb (Kingwood) is 30 miles from downtown Houston and feels very much a part of Houston because Houston is such a massive sprawl monster.

So the Census Bureau's MSA and CSA definitions don't apply to your CSA definition? The San Antonio MSA and CSA has New Braunfels in the name of the MSA and CSA, and Hays Co. (San Marcos) has been part of the Austin MSA since 1990.

I prefer Television Market Areas to determine rankings. If the region is truly functioning as a single cultural and economic unit, then the media should be reflecting that. If the people of Baltimore and D.C. are working in each other's cities and frequenting each other's stores and following each other's media, then the market would follow. D.C. seems to be encroaching on Baltimore, but they're still distinct entities.

The 2018-19 Nielsen rankings feel right to me. I also like that they rank households and not individuals.

1) NYC - 7.10M
2) LA - 5.28M
3) Chicago - 3.25M
4) Philadelphia - 2.82M
5) Dallas - 2.62M
6) D.C. - 2.48M
7) Houston - 2.42M
8) San Francisco - 2.41M
9) Boston - 2.36M
10) Atlanta - 2.34M

Interestingly, the media markets agree that some of the cities put into the NYC CSA are more affiliated with Philadelphia.

Does Nielsen list San Jose separately from San Francisco? I ask because the Bay Area's only NBC affiliate broadcasts out of San Jose.

They list it together as the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market.

I know a lot of people in the area like to think of San Francisco and San Jose as being completely different metros, but the CSA was invented to try to deal with multi-nodal urban areas that share the same major amenities on a regular basis.

Regardless of the MSA and CSA "definitions", if you can't see/feel the blatantly obvious development gaps that exist between Kyle, San Marcos, New Braunfels and Schertz, I don't know what to tell you.

Agree.

A "real world" example:

Katy - Houston's westernmost suburb, lies 31.4 miles from downtown Houston, yet it feels like an extension of Houston (in my opinion).

Meanwhile, New Braunfels - the city that another poster claimed was San Antonio's northernmost suburb - is 30.9 miles from downtown San Antonio, but in no way feels like an extension of San Antonio (in my opinion).

Could we see Orlampa by 2030? With Lakeland part of the Orlando CSA, the Orlando CSA would borders the Tampa MSA. A combined Tampa/Orlando CSA would had a population of 6.2 million in 2010. Probably 7.5 million by 2030.

CSA's in Florida are silly because Florida's counties are just too big. Part of the reason of why the border between Orlando and Tampa gets comlicated is because CSA's use County borders and Polk County is giant. The Tampa Orlando border is probably someone inside of the county and Tampa and Orlando are certainly not connected now. With that giant county between them they just need a certain % commuters in that county to get it in their CSA's.
Polk County:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Po...!4d-81.6911559

Here is the Orlando/Tampa border (the "Countyline Rd"):
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Po...!4d-81.6911559

It actually just got one but its just Phoenix plus Payson adds like 20k people.

By 2030 the Phoenix metro should be hitting up to 6 million which will land it at number 9 or 10. Unless our CSA grows to include Prescott and the Verde Valley (which it could) we will still be ranked far lower on our CSA ranking becasue the Payson Metropolitan area is so small.

Television is a dying medium my dude.

This would also depend on broadcast signal quality. NYC and Philadelphia are so close together that over-the-air signals from New York can easily reach into solid Philadelphia territory, and vice-versa. Many people may opt for one over the other because the signal quality.