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  #1  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 2:04 PM
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Combined, Washington-Baltimore now outsizes Chicago as America’s 3rd largest CSA

Combined, Washington-Baltimore now outsizes Chicago as America’s third largest metropolis

There are many ways to measure the population of regions. According to one that combines Washington & Baltimore, our region has passed Chicago to become the third largest metropolis in the United States.

For most of the past century or so, the United States’ three largest cities have been, unshakably, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. That’s still true according to most measures:

Most populous municipalities: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 23rd)
Most populous metropolitan areas: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 6th)
Most populous urbanized areas: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 8th)
Most populous media markets: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 9th)
But in one measure, Combined Statistical Areas (CSAs), that logjam just broke. CSAs combine adjacent metropolitan areas with shared commuter markets. If a high enough percentage of commuters in one metro area commute into another, you get a CSA.

Washington and Baltimore are combined. So is Los Angeles and its Inland Empire of Riverside & San Bernardino. So are San Francisco and San Jose, Boston and Providence, Detroit and Flint, Cleveland and Akron, Denver and Boulder, and 165 other combinations nationwide. The Census does combine Chicago into a CSA with Ottawa, IL, Kankakee, IL, and Michigan City, IN, but nearby Milwaukee doesn’t make the cut.

And according to that measurement method, the 2021 Census estimates show Washington-Baltimore surpassing Chicago for the first time.

Ten most populous CSAs



https://ggwash.org/view/amp/84981
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  #2  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 4:56 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Originally Posted by EastSideHBG View Post
For most of the past century or so, the United States’ three largest cities have been, unshakably, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. That’s still true according to most measures:
I don't quite agree with this framing. NYC and Chicago, yes. They have been in the top 3 for 130 years. But L.A. didn't officially join the top 3 until the 1950s. There are many people still alive today that were breathing before L.A. became a top 3 city. A few are still around that witnessed it leap into the top 5.

Another interesting thing to note is that L.A. has occupied the #2 slot for about as long as Chicago did. Philadelphia held the #2 slot far longer, and I don't think there's an immediate threat to L.A., but if history holds then we might have a new #2 within the next 2-3 decades.



source: https://www.peakbagger.com/pbgeog/histmetropop.aspx
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  #3  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 5:30 PM
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I have to wait until 8 years before it becomes the New York-Jersey City, NY-NJ-CT-PA CSA. One day. lol
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  #4  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 5:34 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
I don't quite agree with this framing. NYC and Chicago, yes. They have been in the top 3 for 130 years. But L.A. didn't officially join the top 3 until the 1950s. There are many people still alive today that were breathing before L.A. became a top 3 city. A few are still around that witnessed it leap into the top 5.
LA was already (comfortably) the third largest MSA by 1950 — the first decennial census in which 'standard metropolitan statistical areas' were defined (precursor to the present-day 'metropolitan statistical area').

https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...03/pc-3-03.pdf

New York
12,831,914

Chicago
5,475,535

Los Angeles
4,339,225

Philadelphia
3,660,676

Detroit
2,973,019


You will also see in that document that in 1940:

Philadelphia
3,199,637

Los Angeles
2,916,403


LA most likely had surpassed Philly by the mid-40s. It's not entirely inaccurate to say that LA was a top-three population center for most of the 20th century.


Quote:
Another interesting thing to note is that L.A. has occupied the #2 slot for about as long as Chicago did. Philadelphia held the #2 slot far longer, and I don't think there's an immediate threat to L.A., but if history holds then we might have a new #2 within the next 2-3 decades.
There's nothing to indicate that this will happen. Assuming LA remains stagnant, Houston would have to maintain 10% population growth for the next 6 decades to surpass LA's 2020 count. Toronto has a better chance of eclipsing LA in 20-30 years.
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  #5  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 6:11 PM
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I see that the Statistics Canada thread in the Canada forum seems to be causing more controversy than here. It always does whenever the Canadian census gets released.

That aside, WOW I never knew that Washington-Baltimore was that large! I've always assumed that it hovered around 6..Ditto for Boston..I guess CSA'S are a different counting method than MSA'S?
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  #6  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 7:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Razor View Post
..I guess CSA'S are a different counting method than MSA'S?
The "C" in CSA stands for "combined", so a CSA is just a combination of multiple regular old MSAs.
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  #7  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 7:45 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
The "C" in CSA stands for "combined", so a CSA is just a combination of multiple regular old MSAs.
Oh okay thanks, so similar to an entire economic region? .I have to Google it now, and understood. A little OT, but it seems to me that rural areas that are self governing are rare..My impression is that they get absorbed into one large nearby MSA or another. I'm talking counties with some very small similar sized farming communities being run by a single county or regional government. Like a municipality.

Last edited by Razor; Jul 2, 2022 at 8:16 PM.
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  #8  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 7:55 PM
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Originally Posted by Quixote View Post
LA was already (comfortably) the third largest MSA by 1950 — the first decennial census in which 'standard metropolitan statistical areas' were defined (precursor to the present-day 'metropolitan statistical area').

https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...03/pc-3-03.pdf

New York
12,831,914

Chicago
5,475,535

Los Angeles
4,339,225

Philadelphia
3,660,676

Detroit
2,973,019


You will also see in that document that in 1940:

Philadelphia
3,199,637

Los Angeles
2,916,403


LA most likely had surpassed Philly by the mid-40s. It's not entirely inaccurate to say that LA was a top-three population center for most of the 20th century.




There's nothing to indicate that this will happen. Assuming LA remains stagnant, Houston would have to maintain 10% population growth for the next 6 decades to surpass LA's 2020 count. Toronto has a better chance of eclipsing LA in 20-30 years.
There's almost no way la can gets eclipsed.
That's crazy talk.
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  #9  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 8:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Razor View Post
That aside, WOW I never knew that Washington-Baltimore was that large! I've always assumed that it hovered around 6..Ditto for Boston..I guess CSA'S are a different counting method than MSA'S?
'CSA' and 'MSA' boundaries are based on county-level borders (counties are the next administrative unit below 'states' in the US). This leads to areas very far from central cities being included in the CSA numbers (San Bernardino county in California goes all the way to the Nevada border, for example).

I tried a while ago to figure out the 'real' numbers for the LA area, trimming off disconnected zones like Lancaster/Palmdale. It was a bit less than 16 million, as I recall. The DC-Baltimore blob is very diffuse and sprawls all over the place, all the way into West Virginia. It feels very different from a typical 10+ million-person megacity.
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  #10  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 8:30 PM
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How long until we have the "Chicago-Milwaukee CSA"?
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  #11  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 8:33 PM
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Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
There's almost no way la can gets eclipsed.
That's crazy talk.
The most likely, relatively speaking, even if not entirely likely in the absolute sense is that the San Fran / San Jose CSA becomes a single MSA.

Points in favor:

1. Updated integrated transit infrastructure leads to higher commuter interchange could lead to a single MSA on its own, but also:

2. The OMB has been considering updating criteria to include unbuildable terrain as a possible de facto restriction to consider contextually on the minimum width necessary to combine two currently separate UAs into a single UA. If they do this, San Fran and San Jose would likely become the same UA (they remain uncombined because there is not a continuous 5 mile wide band of tracts, because of the underlying geography, at the residential density threshold to be combined). If the UA is combined, the MSAs are automatically combined and they would likely simply be separate MSA divisions at that point. I will go on record as saying that I do think these changes are eventually going to happen.

3. Current population trajectories of the CSA have it still growing whereas Los Angeles’s MSA has it plateaud. If Los Angeles metro has two more decades of slightly red growth, if the Bay Area (SF metro notwithstanding) as a whole continues to grow at close to the pace they are currently growing, the Bay Area would come out about tied with LA.

Points in rebuttal:

4. Los Angeles’s CSA may also eventually become its MSA as well, which would completely put out of contention any other MSA in the entire country from eclipsing it. This fact may be driven by two factors: A. the same changes OMB has been considering MAY (although not guaranteed) also affect LA/Riverside; and B. population growth in Riverside, etc. is being driven by super-commuters priced out of LA’s pricing crisis.

5. Those are a LOT of “what ifs” in the support column.

Wildcards:

6. New counties for SF? If SA/SF become a single MSA, that would necessitate other changes as well. The single metro would have a new set of “core counties” — this larger set of counties would be the basis of commuter aggregation for all outlying counties. This by definition would capture more outlying counties.

—————

All this to say, we don’t know what the future holds except many possibilities.
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HTOWN: 2305k (+10%) + MSA suburbs: 4818k (+26%) + CSA exurbs: 190k (+6%)
BIGD: 1304k (+9%) + MSA div. suburbs: 3826k (+26%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 394k (+8%)
FTW: 919k (+24%) + MSA div. suburbs: 1589k (+14%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 90k (+12%)
SATX: 1435k (+8%) + MSA suburbs: 1124k (+38%) + CSA exurbs: 18k (+11%)
ATX: 962k (+22%) + MSA suburbs: 1322k (+43%)
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  #12  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 8:40 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
I don't quite agree with this framing. NYC and Chicago, yes. They have been in the top 3 for 130 years. But L.A. didn't officially join the top 3 until the 1950s. There are many people still alive today that were breathing before L.A. became a top 3 city. A few are still around that witnessed it leap into the top 5.

Another interesting thing to note is that L.A. has occupied the #2 slot for about as long as Chicago did. Philadelphia held the #2 slot far longer, and I don't think there's an immediate threat to L.A., but if history holds then we might have a new #2 within the next 2-3 decades.



source: https://www.peakbagger.com/pbgeog/histmetropop.aspx
The numbers used in this graph are apples to oranges comparisons depending on the year because of the underlying methodology. The person here is open about this, stating that they use cities, counties, and urban areas depending on the census year and they also make ad hoc combinations that are driven by a prioris rather than sticking to the underlying data.

Key quote:

Quote:
The end results are, at best, educated wild guesses. This is not a serious academic reseach project and my methodology would not hold up to peer-review scrutiny. This means that no number above should be considered 100% accurate, and most city rankings are within plus or minus 2 slots, at best. There are simply too many judgement calls that went into the methodology--which cities were part of which metro areas, what percentage of a county's population was urban, what counties are part of which metro areas, and so on. But I think it does give a reasonably accurate big-picture view of the changing fortunes in America's urban landscape.
What the author is saying here, correctly, is: be careful how you interpret the data here, and be cautious with the words you choose so that you do not claim too much.

The author would likely say that the data cannot support the bold assertion that the Los Angeles MSA became top 3 in 1950. Firstly, the author expressly does not use MSAs. Secondly, the ad hoc decisions the author made (without a full list of those decisions) make comparisons harder so we can’t be sure it was top 3 in their data. We can be sure that it was one of the largest, however. Top 5, at minimum. Thirdly, because they use different data for different years, we also can’t be sure about 1950 either—so let us build in some error to your analysis (and give it some color):

This data presentations suggests that the current second most populated city-based region in the country, Los Angeles and it’s surroundings, developed into one of the top five largest population centers during the period from 1920 until 1970, competing during this time period with cities (and their surroundings) such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and San Francisco. Since 1970, 20 years after the advent of “metropolitan statistical areas,” Los Angeles has remained as yet uneclipsed as the second most populated city-dominated urban region of the United States both in the census data and by this author’s judgment.
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HTOWN: 2305k (+10%) + MSA suburbs: 4818k (+26%) + CSA exurbs: 190k (+6%)
BIGD: 1304k (+9%) + MSA div. suburbs: 3826k (+26%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 394k (+8%)
FTW: 919k (+24%) + MSA div. suburbs: 1589k (+14%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 90k (+12%)
SATX: 1435k (+8%) + MSA suburbs: 1124k (+38%) + CSA exurbs: 18k (+11%)
ATX: 962k (+22%) + MSA suburbs: 1322k (+43%)

Last edited by wwmiv; Jul 2, 2022 at 9:00 PM.
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  #13  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 8:45 PM
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Originally Posted by Randomguy34 View Post
How long until we have the "Chicago-Milwaukee CSA"?
I would guess never.

They are totally different cities.

Let them remain that way.

But I think CSAs are kinda dumb, so.......
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  #14  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 9:05 PM
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How long until we have the "Chicago-Milwaukee CSA"?
Likely never. There’s not enough population growth and commuter patterns are too stable with absolutely no potential event on the horizon (OMB alterations, infrastructure, major jobs announcements, etc.) that could alter things for the region. It is absolutely geographically flat, so any growth either city materializes could be directed in any given direction thus further decreasing the likelihood that the most likely thing to precipitate a combination could happen: filling the prairie between the two with suburban developments full of a combined million (enough input to actually change the CSA equation output) or so super-commuters into the core counties of both of these metro areas.

Not gonna happen.
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HTOWN: 2305k (+10%) + MSA suburbs: 4818k (+26%) + CSA exurbs: 190k (+6%)
BIGD: 1304k (+9%) + MSA div. suburbs: 3826k (+26%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 394k (+8%)
FTW: 919k (+24%) + MSA div. suburbs: 1589k (+14%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 90k (+12%)
SATX: 1435k (+8%) + MSA suburbs: 1124k (+38%) + CSA exurbs: 18k (+11%)
ATX: 962k (+22%) + MSA suburbs: 1322k (+43%)
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  #15  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 10:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Quixote View Post
There's nothing to indicate that this will happen. Assuming LA remains stagnant, Houston would have to maintain 10% population growth for the next 6 decades to surpass LA's 2020 count. Toronto has a better chance of eclipsing LA in 20-30 years.
Toronto grows slower than Houston. But no US metro area will displace Los Angeles as the 2nd. 18 million people against 9 million of Chicago and 7 million of Dallas.

Los Angeles will remain in that position till the 22nd century.
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Old Posted Jul 2, 2022, 11:44 PM
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I tried a while ago to figure out the 'real' numbers for the LA area, trimming off disconnected zones like Lancaster/Palmdale.
Except the facts show that, for the purposes of determining things like the "real numbers for LA," Lancaster and Palmdale are not truly disconnected from greater Los Angeles.

It is true that the Sierra Pelona Ridge physically separates that area from the Valley and the Basin beyond, but it is also true that (pre-pandemic), the annual average daily traffic on the 14 at Sierra Highway, which consists of traffic moving between the growing Lancaster/Palmdale area and the rest of greater LA, was 210,000 vehicles. The calculation includes weekend days, so it's likely that more than 105,000 commuters made workday round trips between Lancaster/Palmdale and the job centers in the Valley and beyond. And that is out of a total Lancaster/Palmdale population of roughly 342,966. I don't know the number of working-age adults out of that population, but it is certain that a very high ratio of employed adults in Lancaster/Palmdale commute to work in the rest of greater LA. Alternatively, a lot of those trips are big rigs moving goods between the harbor and inland distribution centers--which, combined with frequent cargo rail service along the same route, indicates another inseverable economic link between Lancaster/Palmdale and the rest of greater LA.

Meanwhile, MetroLink provides 14 daily trains in each direction between Lancaster/Palmdale and Los Angeles Union Station--and those are one-seat trips. Would a truly "disconnected" area have such a frequent, one-seat commuter rail connection to downtown LA? I don't think so.
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  #17  
Old Posted Jul 3, 2022, 12:42 AM
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Originally Posted by wwmiv View Post
The most likely, relatively speaking, even if not entirely likely in the absolute sense is that the San Fran / San Jose CSA becomes a single MSA.
Which isn't likely.

With sky-high COL, geographic constraints, and NIMBYs, how/where do you see the Bay Area adding an additional 3+ million residents over the course of a few decades? I mean, DFW CSA has "only" added 2.6 million since 2000.
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Last edited by Quixote; Jul 3, 2022 at 12:54 AM.
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  #18  
Old Posted Jul 3, 2022, 2:33 AM
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Originally Posted by Quixote View Post
Which isn't likely.

With sky-high COL, geographic constraints, and NIMBYs, how/where do you see the Bay Area adding an additional 3+ million residents over the course of a few decades? I mean, DFW CSA has "only" added 2.6 million since 2000.
I don’t… which is why I said it isn’t likely in the absolute sense. Do you read?
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HTOWN: 2305k (+10%) + MSA suburbs: 4818k (+26%) + CSA exurbs: 190k (+6%)
BIGD: 1304k (+9%) + MSA div. suburbs: 3826k (+26%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 394k (+8%)
FTW: 919k (+24%) + MSA div. suburbs: 1589k (+14%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 90k (+12%)
SATX: 1435k (+8%) + MSA suburbs: 1124k (+38%) + CSA exurbs: 18k (+11%)
ATX: 962k (+22%) + MSA suburbs: 1322k (+43%)
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  #19  
Old Posted Jul 3, 2022, 3:53 AM
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Why proffer a far-fetched, “bold assertion” with more “points in favor” than “rebuttal,” only to essentially conclude with a blanket obvious statement? Basically there was no point to your post. Should’ve included a “TL;DR” at the end there.
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Old Posted Jul 3, 2022, 4:47 AM
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Originally Posted by wwmiv View Post
Likely never. There’s not enough population growth and commuter patterns are too stable with absolutely no potential event on the horizon (OMB alterations, infrastructure, major jobs announcements, etc.) that could alter things for the region. It is absolutely geographically flat, so any growth either city materializes could be directed in any given direction thus further decreasing the likelihood that the most likely thing to precipitate a combination could happen: filling the prairie between the two with suburban developments full of a combined million (enough input to actually change the CSA equation output) or so super-commuters into the core counties of both of these metro areas.

Not gonna happen.
What could be imaginable is poaching Racine County from the Milwaukee CSA to the Chicago CSA. (Not that Racine County people would commute to downtown Chicago, but to Kenosha County and Lake County). Still, it's only 200k people.
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