Rank your MSA's counties by relevance/importance

[Steely Dan]

as most of you probably know, i'm not the world's biggest proponent of the CB's county mash-up game for delineating MSAs, so let's say that you were charged with peeling some counties off from your city's MSA, which ones would be the first to go?

rank them from most to least relevant/important.



chicago's bloated MSA now consists of 14 counties (9 in IL, 4 in IN, and 1 in WI). a handful of them are giant cornbelt counties with low populations that send just enough people over county lines to meet commuter thresholds for inclusion, but otherwise have no business being included in the metro area.


here's how I'd rank the counties of Chicago's MSA:

1. cook
2. dupage
3. lake (IL)
4. will
5. kane
6. lake (IN)
7. mchenry
8. kendall
9. kenosha
10. porter
11. grundy
12. dekalb
13. newton
14. jasper


#1 is 100% irrefutable for blatantly obvious reasons; cook not only holds the city of chicago, it also contains 54.8% of the MSA's total population all by itself!

the rest are open to some debate. though i feel very confident about my bottom 7 overall, even if others might nit-pick my specific ordering of some of them.

if all 7 of the bolded were cleaved from the MSA, it wouldn't change a great deal. collectively they only hold 673K people, or just 7.0% of the MSA's total pop.



aside: i wish that the two lake counties would have been more original with their names. it can be mildly confusing that cook county is bookended on both its northern and southeastern borders by two different counties both named "lake".

[PhilliesPhan]

For the Philadelphia MSA, I'd say:

1.) Philadelphia County
2.) Montgomery County
3.) Chester County
4.) Delaware County
5.) Camden County, NJ
6.) New Castle County, DE
7.) Bucks County
8.) Gloucester County, NJ
9.) Burlington County, NJ
10.) Cumberland County, NJ
11.) Salem County, NJ
12.) Cecil County, MD

#3-#6 could probably be switched to some extent, but I'd say that this is the order within the MSA. If Mercer County, NJ were to rejoin our MSA, it would likely rank #4 or #5.

[iheartthed]

New York is pretty hard since there are so many counties, but here's a stab at it in order of economic importance:

1. New York, NY
2. Queens, NY
3. Union, NJ
4. Essex, NJ
5. Kings, NY
6. Hudson, NJ
7. Bronx, NY
8. Nassau, NY
9. Westchester, NY
10. Fairfield, CT (technically not MSA, but de facto)
11. Middlesex, NJ
12. Morris, NJ
13. Suffolk, NY

Detroit is much easier:

1. Wayne, MI
2. Oakland, MI
3. Macomb, MI
4. Washtenaw, MI
5. Monroe, MI

[dave8721]

Pretty easy when there's only 3:
1. Miami-Dade County
2. Broward County
3. Palm Beach County

[pj3000]

Pittsburgh

1. Allegheny
2. Washington
3. Beaver
4. Westmoreland
5. Butler
6. Fayette
7. Armstrong

[Antares41]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

New York is pretty hard since there are so many counties, but here's a stab at it in order of economic importance:

1. New York, NY
2. Queens, NY
3. Union, NJ
4. Essex, NJ
5. Kings, NY
6. Hudson, NJ
7. Bronx, NY
8. Nassau, NY
9. Westchester, NY
10. Fairfield, CT (technically not MSA, but de facto)
11. Middlesex, NJ
12. Morris, NJ
13. Suffolk, NY

[/LIST]

I think its a good ranking, tough to say given opinions on what constitutes relevance is likely to be all over the map. I think Brooklyn(Kings) feel even with or just above Queens. Although I can understand people giving Queens the 2nd place due to the presence of the two airports.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Phoenix:
Maricopa
[Distant seconds] Uh...Pinal and maybe a little slice of Yavapai?

Cincinnati:
Hamilton (Ohio)
Butler
Warren (Ohio)
Tie: Kenton (KY) and Campbell (KY)
Boone (KY, airport)
Clermont (Ohio)
Brown (Ohio)
Some rando KY counties in the outlying area (Gallatin, Preble, Mason, Grant, Bracken)
Southeastern Indiana (Dearborn, Franklin, Ohio, Union)

[sopas ej]

For LA, I'm having trouble ranking San Bernardino and Riverside Counties; for me they're both a toss-up in terms of relevance (economic or cultural?). Personally, I prefer Riverside to San Bernardino County (lots of day trips to Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Temecula), so this is how I'll rank them:

1. Los Angeles
2. Orange
3. Riverside
4. San Bernardino
5. Ventura

[muertecaza]

Phoenix's is easy as it only has two counties:

1. Maricopa
2. Pinal

Maricopa has about 10x the population of Pinal (4,420,568 v. 425,264), so is clearly preeminent.

It wouldn't make sense to remove Pinal from the Phoenix MSA; San Tan Valley, the most populous area, is undoubtedly part of the metro, as are Queen Creek and Apache Junction, which straddle the line between Maricopa and Pinal.

Other municipalities are more debatable, like Maricopa, Casa Grande, Coolidge, Florence, etc. But I'd still consider those exurbs within the metro area.

The biggest problem in Phoenix is that they use county borders to define MSAs despite the humongous counties in Arizona. It creates some absurd results, like Marana, a Tucson exurb, being technically in both the Tucson and Phoenix MSAs, because a small portion of Marana is in Pinal County.

If the question was about CSAs, I would definitely carve off Gila County/Payson, which was recently added to Phoenix's CSA.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

New York is pretty hard since there are so many counties, but here's a stab at it in order of economic importance:

1. New York, NY
2. Queens, NY
3. Union, NJ
4. Essex, NJ
5. Kings, NY
6. Hudson, NJ
7. Bronx, NY
8. Nassau, NY
9. Westchester, NY
10. Fairfield, CT (technically not MSA, but de facto)
11. Middlesex, NJ
12. Morris, NJ
13. Suffolk, NY

Detroit is much easier:

1. Wayne, MI
2. Oakland, MI
3. Macomb, MI
4. Washtenaw, MI
5. Monroe, MI

Curious, do you have Queens #2 due to LGA and JFK?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Antares41

I think its a good ranking, tough to say given opinions on what constitutes relevance is likely to be all over the map. I think Brooklyn(Kings) feel even with or just above Queens. Although I can understand people giving Queens the 2nd place due to the presence of the two airports.

Yeah, my criteria was based on 1) jobs, 2) critical infrastructure, and 3) population.

Manhattan (New York) was the obvious winner for being a jobs center. Queens has the airports as well as critical commuter rail links. Union has Newark airport. Essex (Newark) is a large jobs center and commuter hub. Brooklyn (Kings) is the most populous county in NY metro, but it doesn't currently have a ton of jobs that draw in commuters. Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn is a hub for LIRR commuters, but I would rank it behind Jamaica Station or Newark Penn Station in importance, and obviously it is not as critical as an airport.

Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago

Curious, do you have Queens #2 due to LGA and JFK?

Yeah, see above.

[wwmiv]

Austin:

1. Travis (contains Austin and some inner suburbs)
2. Williamson (contains Round Rock, Cedar Park, and the majority of the suburban population)
3. Hays (contains Buda and Kyle, as well as San Marcos which is a bit more of satellite than a suburb)
4. Bastrop
5. Caldwell

Caldwell and Bastrop could be eliminated without changing the top-line very much, but I generally agree with the county mash up game from a practical perspective: because these statistical entities are used as government funding criteria, it is important to have them match the entities to which money will be transferred down. Therefore, counties are the easiest entity to use.

Edit: Caldwell will almost certainly eclipse Bastrop in the next ten years, as Lockhart is in the hunt to become a business center.

[homebucket]

Bay Area:
1. San Francisco
2. Santa Clara
3. Alameda
4. San Mateo
5. Napa
6. Sonoma
7. Contra Costa
8. Solano
9. Marin

The first 3 are obvious since they represent the triumvirate of the 3 primary cities of the Bay Area. San Francisco, San Jose/Silicon Valley, and Oakland/Berkeley/Fremont, and I've placed them in their appropriate orders of domestic and global importance/influence.

Then I've got San Mateo as it's basically a SF/SJ hybrid and is a major economic driver of the region.

Next, I've got Napa and Sonoma since they represent major tourist destinations as well as being titans of the wine, dining, and agriculture industries.

To round up the back, I've got Contra Costa, followed by Solano as the primary working class regions of the Bay Area and some of the main drivers of Bay Area culture (Alameda serves that role as well). Marin probably has the least influence overall as its mainly protected outdoor recreational areas (Muir Woods, the Marin Headlands, Stinson Beach, the Point Reyes National Seashore, and Mount Tamalpais), but otherwise doesn't contribute much economically or culturally.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan

For the Philadelphia MSA, I'd say:

1.) Philadelphia County
2.) Montgomery County
3.) Chester County
4.) Delaware County
5.) Camden County, NJ
6.) New Castle County, DE
7.) Bucks County
8.) Gloucester County, NJ
9.) Burlington County, NJ
10.) Cumberland County, NJ
11.) Salem County, NJ
12.) Cecil County, MD

#3-#6 could probably be switched to some extent, but I'd say that this is the order within the MSA. If Mercer County, NJ were to rejoin our MSA, it would likely rank #4 or #5.

I'd probably rank New Castle above Camden County and maybe even Delaware County. This (yours) is the ranking from the perspective of a native Pennsylvanian. Camden County doesn't have the same historical relevance as a major center of employment and innovation in the way that New Castle does IMO: i.e. Dupont, MBNA (rip), GoreTex, University of Delaware etc. It also not a banking center or a state capital.

[PhilliesPhan]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I'd probably rank New Castle above Camden County and maybe even Delaware County. This is the ranking from the perspective of a native Pennsylvanian. Camden County doesn't have the same historical relevance as a major center of employment and innovation in the way that New Castle does IMO: i.e. Dupont, MBNA (rip), GoreTex, University of Delaware etc. It also not a banking center or a state capital.

Yeah, I initially had Delaware and New Castle Counties switched. I ultimately gave Delco the edge due to the fact that a large portion of PHL lies within it, as well as the refining and industrial capacity along the Delaware River. For some reason, I wasn't thinking about the finance/banking industry in Wilmington and the burgeoning life sciences presence in Newark. The list should probably look like:

1.) Philadelphia County
2.) Montgomery County
3.) Chester County
4.) New Castle County, DE
5.) Delaware County
6.) Camden County, NJ
7.) Bucks County
8.) Gloucester County, NJ
9.) Burlington County, NJ
10.) Cumberland County, NJ
11.) Salem County, NJ
12.) Cecil County, MD

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

For LA, I'm having trouble ranking San Bernardino and Riverside Counties; for me they're both a toss-up in terms of relevance (economic or cultural?). Personally, I prefer Riverside to San Bernardino County (lots of day trips to Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Temecula), so this is how I'll rank them:

1. Los Angeles
2. Orange
3. Riverside
4. San Bernardino
5. Ventura

Yep. This is how I’d rank them as well.

[austlar1]

DFW Metro The first four are obvious for many reasons. The rest based on GDP:

Dallas
Tarrant
Collin
Denton
Johnson
Ellis
Parker
Hunt
Rockwall
Wise
Kaufman

[TWAK]

Lake County.
Yup, that's it. We could be absorbed into the Sac or Bay Area CSA at some point.

[dimondpark]

San Francisco MSA:
1 San Francisco
2 Alameda
3 San Mateo
4 Contra Costa
5 Marin

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Lake County.
Yup, that's it. We could be absorbed into the Sac or Bay Area CSA at some point.

Interestingly, Lake and Mendocino counties are part of the SF tv market but not connected to SF as far as govt statistics are concerned, at least not yet.