Tracking metropolitan America into the 21st century - Population ...

Table 2. Number ofMicroSAs by StateRank State Micros1 Texas 412 Ohio 293 North Carolina 264 Indiana 255 Georgia 246 Illinois 237 Pennsylvania 218 Missouri 209 Mississippi 2010 Tennessee 2011 Michigan 1812 Minnesota 1813 Kentucky 1714 Louisiana 1715 Oklahoma 1716 Kansas 1517 New York 1518 Iowa 1519 Arkansas 1420 New Mexico 1421 Oregon 1322 South Carolina 1323 Wisconsin 1324 Alabama 1325 Florida 1126 Nebraska 1027 South Dakota 928 Washington 929 California 930 Idaho 831 Colorado 732 Wyoming 733 West Virginia 634 New Hampshire 635 Arizona 536 Montana 537 North Dakota 538 Vermont 539 Utah 540 Maryland 441 Nevada 442 Alaska 343 Hawaii 344 Virginia 345 Connecticut 246 Maine 247 Delaware 148 District of Columbia 049 Massachusetts 050 New Jersey 051 Rhode Island 0Source: OMBNote: Micropolitan areas that cross stateboundaries are counted once in each state.Frey (2004a) highlight the variationsin micropolitan area demographic profiles.They find that the fastest-growingMicroSAs are located nearby largegrowing MetroSAs, while the moreremote MicroSAs are generally smallerand slow-growing. Overall, MicroSApopulations tend to be older, poorer,more conservative, less educated, andless racially diverse than their metropolitancounterparts. 15C. Under the new system, 81 of thenation’s 102 largest metropolitanareas have undergone changes interritory and population.Analysts and even casual observersfirst encountering the new metropolitanareas will likely ask: How differentare the new standards from the oldones? The simple answer is: quite abit. The changes are especially pronouncedin the nation’s larger metropolitanareas, which form the focus ofmany Brookings Metropolitan PolicyProgram analyses. This section firstdescribes the changes from the old tonew systems at the county level, thenexplores how those county transitionsre-shaped the nation’s largest metropolitanareas.County ShiftsBecause both the old and new systemsare county-based, it is possible to viewthe extent of change between the twosystems from the county level. Betweenthe systems, counties could make sixpossible transitions, shown in Table 3.Of the 3,141 counties that make upthe United States, a plurality (43 percent)remained “undefined”—that is,they were non-metropolitan under theold system and are non-core-basedunder the new system. They includethe vast number of small, rural countiesfound mostly in the interior states.The next largest proportion of counties(26 percent) remained metropolitanbetween the old and new systems, andof these the vast majority (92 percent)remained within the same metropolitanarea. So roughly 70 percent ofcounties retained a comparable classificationin the transition to the newstandards.Other counties changed classificationdue to the introduction of themicropolitan concept, new rules fordefining metropolitan areas, changesin commuting patterns, or simple populationgrowth and decentralization.Counties that changed from non-metropolitanto micropolitan were fairlycommon, accounting for 21 percentof all counties and nearly 10 percentof U.S. population. Nine percent ofU.S. counties jumped from non-metropolitanto metropolitan status. Farsmaller proportions moved down thehierarchy from metropolitan tomicropolitan (1 percent) and frommetropolitan to non-core-based status(just 5 counties).As a result of these transitions, agreater share of the nation’s populationis now considered metropolitan(83 percent, up from 80 percent). Onnet, 242 counties moved from nonmetropolitanto metropolitan standing(46 from metropolitan to non-metropolitanand 288 from non-metropolitanto metropolitan). Some becamepart of the 44 new metropolitan areasannounced under the new system,while others were added onto thefringe of existing metropolitan areas.Of the 46 counties that changed statusfrom metropolitan to non-metropolitan,only five did not becomepart of a MicroSA. The 41 previouslymetropolitan counties that becamemicropolitan did not necessarily shrinkin size, but generally failed to meetthe new more stringent commutingthreshold for inclusion in metropolitanareas.Metropolitan ShiftsDespite the fact that a majority of thenation’s counties have effectively thesame designations under the new system,the county composition of most ofthe nation’s largest metropolitan areaschanged in some way. In fact, 81 of the102 metropolitan areas with popula-The Living Cities Census Series