METROPOLITAN AREA or CITY PROPER?

[kphoger]

Then you have Ciudad Juarez across the Mexico border that isn't included in the El Paso MSA.  I understand there is an international border so counting people in two countries has legal issues and are separate censuses, but it's foolish not to count that population because those people are all living in the same space.  The MSA is also there to give you an idea of how many people you will encounter when you visit an area in terms traffic, crime, entertainment, etc.  You can't just say there are only 700,000 people in the El Paso area, and there are another 2 million people living across the border, but just ignore them.  They don't count, although they are going to be driving, shopping and walking along with you so you will experience congestion that is closer to a multi-million person population city; they live in another country so they aren't really there. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transborder_agglomeration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso%E2%80%93Ju%C3%A1rez

[andrepoiy]

I use metropolitan area for one reason: city boundaries are not created equal.

For example, Ontario cities were amalgamated back in 1997. This results in city boundaries having a lot of rural areas. Two examples are Ottawa and Hamilton, ON, have large swaths of rural countryside in their city boundaries. This is often true for a lot of other municipalities in Ontario. This skews data, such as population density, crime, etc.

On the other hand, due to amalgamation, some cities became "megacities". This includes Toronto, which prior to 1997, was 6 cities (Old Toronto, East York, Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, and York).

Therefore, attempting to compare an Ontario city with a city that hasn't been amalgamated to such a large extent (for example, Montreal), would not be a fair comparison.

Quebec itself also has a mix of amalgamated and non-amalgamated cities. For example, the city of Gatineau contains many different towns and rural areas, while Montreal area has incorporated cities that are completely surrounded by Montreal.

Therefore, only metropolitan areas or urban areas would provide a fair comparison.

[empirestate]

I rank cities by cities.

And of course, I rank metropolitan areas by metropolitan areas. They're separate ideas–there isn't an instance I can think of where I'd use one to rank the other. For example, if you asked me which is the most populous city in Kansas, I'd say Wichita rather than Kansas City. And similarly, I wouldn't tell you that Massachusetts' largest city is Cambridge, even though Cambridge is in the state's largest metro area.

Bringing it on topic, for the same reason I'd say that I-80 goes to Chicago and to New York, even though it goes neither to the city of Chicago nor the city of New York. Even though I use the name of a city to refer to a metro area, I'm still naming the metro area and not the city, just as when I say "Hampton Roads", I'm referring to the metro area of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, not to the city of Hampton Roads.

Cambridge? Huh? Cambridge is part of the Boston metro.

Right, the largest in the state. (You could also, I suppose, say that Boston is in the Cambridge metro area, which would be unorthodox but not strictly incorrect.)

But Cambridge is the fourth-largest city by population in Massachusetts. However, you wouldn't list it this way:
1. Boston
2. Worcester
3. Springfield
4. Boston
...because you are ranking cities, not metro areas. It would be meaningless to rank cities according to the name of their metro area. (Even less so if you were ranking by area!)

To carry the silliness to an extreme, consider the ten largest cities in Arizona, ranked by metro area:
1. Phoenix
2. Tucson
3. Phoenix
4. Phoenix
5. Phoenix
6. Phoenix
7. Phoenix
8. Phoenix
9. Phoenix
10. Phoenix

[Flint1979]

Basically saying the ten largest cities in Arizona are Phoenix, Tuscon and then 8 suburbs of Phoenix.

[ethanhopkin14]

Then you have Ciudad Juarez across the Mexico border that isn't included in the El Paso MSA.  I understand there is an international border so counting people in two countries has legal issues and are separate censuses, but it's foolish not to count that population because those people are all living in the same space.  The MSA is also there to give you an idea of how many people you will encounter when you visit an area in terms traffic, crime, entertainment, etc.  You can't just say there are only 700,000 people in the El Paso area, and there are another 2 million people living across the border, but just ignore them.  They don't count, although they are going to be driving, shopping and walking along with you so you will experience congestion that is closer to a multi-million person population city; they live in another country so they aren't really there. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transborder_agglomeration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso%E2%80%93Ju%C3%A1rez

I wasn't saying it doesn't exist, I was saying most times they don't count the population across the border.  I am very aware of the transborder agglomeration. 

The statement is more like "There are about a million people living in the El Paso area.......then there is this Juarez city across the border with like 2.2 million people in it.... anyway, moving on."

Sometimes they aren't lumped together because there are people from two different economies co-existing, so they tend to have different habits, besides just a physicals border. 

Example, there are enough people in the El Paso-Juarez-Las Cruces area for one of the 4 major North American sports, but most of those people live in extreme poverty and can't support one of those teams so the MSA is looked at only on the American side. 

[empirestate]

Basically saying the ten largest cities in Arizona are Phoenix, Tuscon and then 8 suburbs of Phoenix.

Exactly–no way that ranking makes sense if you substitute metro areas for cities. It would be a bit like comparing the heights of ten people by listing the ten longest bones among them.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Generally I go by cities. Metros can be inaccurate to convey size because in MN Rochester proper is significantly larger than Duluth proper, but Duluth's metro is 70,000 larger than Rochester's.

[Rothman]

Generally I go by cities. Metros can be inaccurate to convey size because in MN Rochester proper is significantly larger than Duluth proper, but Duluth's metro is 70,000 larger than Rochester's.

I take it they're including Superior.

[Scott5114]

Then you have Ciudad Juarez across the Mexico border that isn't included in the El Paso MSA.  I understand there is an international border so counting people in two countries has legal issues and are separate censuses, but it's foolish not to count that population because those people are all living in the same space.  The MSA is also there to give you an idea of how many people you will encounter when you visit an area in terms traffic, crime, entertainment, etc.  You can't just say there are only 700,000 people in the El Paso area, and there are another 2 million people living across the border, but just ignore them.  They don't count, although they are going to be driving, shopping and walking along with you so you will experience congestion that is closer to a multi-million person population city; they live in another country so they aren't really there. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transborder_agglomeration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso%E2%80%93Ju%C3%A1rez

I wasn't saying it doesn't exist, I was saying most times they don't count the population across the border.  I am very aware of the transborder agglomeration. 

The statement is more like "There are about a million people living in the El Paso area.......then there is this Juarez city across the border with like 2.2 million people in it.... anyway, moving on."

I think a part of that is because the U.S. Census Bureau has no jurisdiction in Juárez, which means the data cannot meaningfully be combined. Does Mexico conduct their census on April 1 of years ending in 0? Do they conduct their operations according to Census Bureau procedures and quality control standards? Do they collect all of the same types of demographic data as the U.S. Census? If the answer to any of those is no, you can't add the two population numbers and get a number that can be used for anything important.

For another thing, the U.S. Census Bureau data is collected primarily for the use of the government. Juárez's population is wholly irrelevant to apportionment of House of Representatives seats, for deciding where to spend money on government programs, for planning infrastructure on the U.S. side of the border, etc. Given that, extending the El Paso MSA to include Juárez would just kind of cause a lot of problems without really having much benefit other than satisfying a few people's intellectual curiosity, and potentially cause a ton of problems.

[kphoger]

Does Mexico conduct their census on April 1 of years ending in 0?

Years ending in 0  -  Yes
April 1  -  No

1900:  October 28
1910:  October 27
1920:  November 30 of the following year (due to lingering political unrest after the Revolution)
1930:  May 15
1940:  March 6
1950:  June 6
1960:  June 8
1670:  January 28
1980:  June 4
1990:  March 12
2000:  February 14
2010:  June 12
2020:  March 15

[bing101]

I used both because whenever city proper is brought up in California one will say Fresno is larger than Sacramento and  San Jose is larger than San Francisco. However when metro area is discussed San Francisco is the larger area for Bay Area and Sacramento is considered a large inland metro area in Northern California.

[jgb191]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:

309K Cincinnati
308K Orlando
303K Pittsburgh
302K St. Louis
278K Buffalo

Furthermore, it is not too far behind two other sports cities of Cleveland (372K) and New Orleans (384K).

[Roadgeekteen]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:

309K Cincinnati
308K Orlando
303K Pittsburgh
302K St. Louis
278K Buffalo

Furthermore, it is not too far behind two other sports cities of Cleveland (372K) and New Orleans (384K).

But how big is it's metro area?

[JayhawkCO]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:

309K Cincinnati
308K Orlando
303K Pittsburgh
302K St. Louis
278K Buffalo

Furthermore, it is not too far behind two other sports cities of Cleveland (372K) and New Orleans (384K).

If you're going by city population only, on the expansion list for the five major leagues (including MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS), you're behind:
Fort Worth, El Paso, Louisville, Albuquerque, Tucson, Mesa, Fresno, Colorado Springs, Omaha, Long Beach, Virginia Beach, Tulsa, Wichita, Bakersfield, Aurora, Henderson, Honolulu, Riverside, and Santa Ana (19 cities)

If you're going by metro area, you're behind:
Riverside, Virginia Beach, Providence, Richmond, Louisville, Hartford, Birmingham, Rochester, Grand Rapids, Tucson, Honolulu, Tulsa, Fresno, Worcester, Omaha, Bridgeport, Greenville, Albuquerque, Bakersfield, Albany, Knoxville, McAllen, Baton Rouge, El Paso, New Haven, Allentown, Oxnard, Sarasota, Columbia, Dayton, Charleston, Stockton, Greensboro, Boise, Cape Coral, Colorado Springs, Little Rock, Lakeland, Des Moines, Akron, Springfield, Poughkeepsie, Ogden, Madison, Winston-Salem, Provo, Daytona Beach, Syracuse, Durham, Wichita, Toledo, Augusta, Melbourne, Jackson, Harrisburg, Spokane, Scranton, Chattanooga, Lancaster, Modesto, Portland, Fayetteville, Lansing, Youngstown, Fayetteville, Lexington, Pensacola, Huntsville, Reno, Santa Rosa, Myrtle Beach, Port St. Lucie, Lafayette, Springfield, Killeen, Visalia, Asheville, York, Vallejo, Santa Barbara, Salinas, Salem, Mobile, Reading, and Manchester (85 metros)

I think you'll be waiting a while. 

Chris

[kphoger]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:

309K Cincinnati
308K Orlando
303K Pittsburgh
302K St. Louis
278K Buffalo

Furthermore, it is not too far behind two other sports cities of Cleveland (372K) and New Orleans (384K).

But how big is it's metro area?

2 805 473 = Greater St Louis
2 635 228 = Pittsburgh—New Castle—Weirton
2 608 147 = Orlando
2 137 406 = Cincinnati
1 166 902 = Buffalo—Niagara Falls
442 600 = Corpus Christi

[ethanhopkin14]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:

309K Cincinnati
308K Orlando
303K Pittsburgh
302K St. Louis
278K Buffalo

Furthermore, it is not too far behind two other sports cities of Cleveland (372K) and New Orleans (384K).

But how big is it's metro area?

Well when it comes to the major professional sports, there is another wrinkle.  The leagues are predicated by TV markets.  There is more money in the TV contracts than there is in potentially filling a stadium by population.  Yes, they usually go hand in hand (large metro = large TV market) but not always.  I think the reason San Antonio keeps getting skipped for a new NFL franchise is the San Antonio TV market is bad.  They definitely have the raw numbers.

[US 89]

There are some applications for which comparing the size of city proper is useful. Determining a city's potential to host a sports team is not one of them.

For sports teams you want to look at the nearby population base that is going to come to your games - and arbitrary city boundaries aren't going to stop people from coming. The only time political boundaries might even have this type of effect is if your metro is big enough for two teams with a geographical split between fanbases - like what you see in Chicago with the Cubs and White Sox.

Well when it comes to the major professional sports, there is another wrinkle.  The leagues are predicated by TV markets.  There is more money in the TV contracts than there is in potentially filling a stadium by population.  Yes, they usually go hand in hand (large metro = large TV market) but not always.  I think the reason San Antonio keeps getting skipped for a new NFL franchise is the San Antonio TV market is bad.  They definitely have the raw numbers.

I don't know that TV markets mean all that much though - look at Salt Lake City. The SLC media market consists of all of Utah and parts of northeast Nevada, southeast Idaho, and southwest Wyoming. That adds to around 3.3 million people and is bigger than several other DMAs with multiple Big Four sports teams (including Kansas City and New Orleans), but SLC only has the Jazz for that.

[jgb191]

Not saying we deserve a sports team (in fact far from it -- my heart belong to Houston sports), but just pointing out the comparable city sizes.  But if you put together the nearby areas of Laredo and Brownsville/McAllen, it adds up to almost 2.3 million people.

[webny99]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:
...

But how big is it's metro area?

...
1 166 902 = Buffalo—Niagara Falls
442 600 = Corpus Christi

There are some applications for which comparing the size of city proper is useful. Determining a city's potential to host a sports team is not one of them.

For sports teams you want to look at the nearby population base that is going to come to your games - and arbitrary city boundaries aren't going to stop people from coming. The only time political boundaries might even have this type of effect is if your metro is big enough for two teams with a geographical split between fanbases - like what you see in Chicago with the Cubs and White Sox.

Exactly. And in some cases, one team can draw from multiple metro areas, as the Buffalo Bills (and to a lesser extent, the Buffalo Sabres) do from the Rochester area. So you can really add Rochester's metro population of 1.07 million to the aforementioned figure for Buffalo.

[golden eagle]

My home town of Corpus Christi, Texas has 318,000 larger than these cities with sports teams:

309K Cincinnati
308K Orlando
303K Pittsburgh
302K St. Louis
278K Buffalo

Furthermore, it is not too far behind two other sports cities of Cleveland (372K) and New Orleans (384K).

But how big is it's metro area?

Well when it comes to the major professional sports, there is another wrinkle.  The leagues are predicated by TV markets.  There is more money in the TV contracts than there is in potentially filling a stadium by population.  Yes, they usually go hand in hand (large metro = large TV market) but not always.  I think the reason San Antonio keeps getting skipped for a new NFL franchise is the San Antonio TV market is bad.  They definitely have the raw numbers.

How is the San Antonio TV market "bad"? Plus, nearby Austin is not too far down at #40. Both markets combined would just clip Miami at #16. I even heard someone on sports talk radio years ago make the case for Austin getting an NFL team because of high tech corporate sponsors. This was around the time when the New Orleans Saints were flirting with moving to San Antonio.

[MinecraftNinja]

Metropolitan area.

[empirestate]

Metropolitan area.

I mean, maybe sometimes, but always? For example...

Top 10 newest cities in California, by date of incorporation, by metropolitan area:
1. Los Angeles
2. Los Angeles
3. Los Angeles
4. Los Angeles
5. Sacramento
6. Santa Barbara
7. Los Angeles
8. Sacramento
9. Los Angeles
10. Los Angeles

[webny99]

To carry the silliness to an extreme, consider the ten largest cities in Arizona, ranked by metro area:
1. Phoenix
2. Tucson
3. Phoenix
4. Phoenix
5. Phoenix
6. Phoenix
7. Phoenix
8. Phoenix
9. Phoenix
10. Phoenix

Top 10 newest cities in California, by date of incorporation, by metropolitan area:
1. Los Angeles
2. Los Angeles
3. Los Angeles
4. Los Angeles
5. Sacramento
6. Santa Barbara
7. Los Angeles
8. Sacramento
9. Los Angeles
10. Los Angeles

Well, of course you can't use the metro area name instead of the actual city name when the word "city" is literally right in the prompt. Metro areas don't even have a date of incorporation, so that is just silliness.

And because of that, I think what you've done here grossly misrepresents the usefulness of the metro area population. It doesn't mean you should throw out everything but the core city in your analyses and pretend all of a city's environs are part of that city. It simply means that you're looking at the area and its sphere of influence more holistically.

This is often necessary when comparing different areas, such as, for example, Jacksonville and Atlanta. The city of Jacksonville is so tremendous in land area that almost all of the people living in Jacksonville's sphere of influence live in the city itself. Atlanta, by contrast, is a relatively compact city, but is surrounded by many rings of suburbs, such that most of the people living in Atlanta's sphere of influence technically live in a town or city with a different name.

Nobody's suggesting that only one or the other can/should be used. The question is which you'd tend to defer to absent of any context. And this, of course, does not include anything that explicitly specifies which is being looked at.

[DTComposer]

Metropolitan area.

I mean, maybe sometimes, but always? For example...

Top 10 newest cities in California, by date of incorporation, by metropolitan area:
1. Los Angeles Riverside
2. Los Angeles Riverside
3. Los Angeles Riverside
4. Los Angeles Riverside
5. Sacramento
6. Santa Barbara
7. Los Angeles
8. Sacramento
9. Los Angeles
10. Los Angeles San Francisco

If you're going to make a point about using/not using metropolitan areas, make sure you get your metropolitan areas right 

[empirestate]

And because of that, I think what you've done here grossly misrepresents the usefulness of the metro area population. It doesn't mean you should throw out everything but the core city in your analyses and pretend all of a city's environs are part of that city. It simply means that you're looking at the area and its sphere of influence more holistically.

Can you say more about misrepresenting the population of the metro area? Of course, the list of cities by incorporation doesn't represent (correctly or otherwise) the population of anything, at all.

Nobody's suggesting that only one or the other can/should be used. The question is which you'd tend to defer to absent of any context. And this, of course, does not include anything that explicitly specifies which is being looked at.

Well, the question does actually specify which is being looked at, as it says "cities". But even assuming this isn't meant literally, then what I'm curious about is how one would be able to tell, in the absence of context, which context is appropriate to apply, always?

If you're going to make a point about using/not using metropolitan areas, make sure you get your metropolitan areas right 

Good point...although while I didn't take a lot of time to be super accurate, I did place Riverside metro within the Los Angeles-Long Beach CSA, which I just abbreviated as "Los Angeles". (Which brings up the question: should you rank cities by metropolitan area, or by combined statistical area?) 

Also, I am surprised to learn that #10, Laguna Woods, is in the Bay Area!