AARoads Forum

Do you rank cities by METROPOLITAN AREA or CITY PROPER?

For example, in the combined three states of Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee...

The five largest METROPOLITAN AREAS are:

1.  Atlanta, Georgia  6,209,406
2.  Miami, Florida  6,138,333
3.  Tampa, Florida  4,734,037
4.  Orlando, Florida  3,833,531
5.  Nashville, Tennessee  2,174,887

The five largest CITIES (by CITY PROPER) are:

1.  Jacksonville, Florida  949,611
2.  Nashville, Tennessee 689,447
3.  Memphis, Tennessee 633,104
4.  Atlanta, Georgia 498,715
5.  Miami, Florida 442,241

I voted both because it depends on the context.  That said, I generally refer to the metro area far more than city since when people ask where I'm from when traveling, I'm far more likely to say Denver as opposed to Aurora.  I grew up "in the Twin Cities" more than I grew up in Hastings, Eden Prairie, and Eagan.  I used to live in Kansas City, despite actually living in Overland Park or Mission.

Chris

It depends on how exactly I want to manipulate the data to prove my point.   :)

I voted both simply because it will boil down to what exactly is the topic in a discussion.

Almost always the metro area because of the tendency of cities in the south to skew things by annexing their suburbs.

Case in point: Look at Jacksonville compared to Atlanta. There's no way Jacksonville should be ranked higher than Atlanta in any size or status based exercise. It's almost laughable.

Both.

Who actually lives in the city, rather than the suburbs, is relevant only when talking about city politics.  The metro area is the measure of how big and important a city is.

Quote from: SP Cook on August 23, 2021, 03:28:29 PM
Who actually lives in the city, rather than the suburbs, is relevant only when talking about city politics.  The metro area is the measure of how big and important a city is.

But somehow irrelevant for some members when talking about control cities.  :)

Chris

When comparing something like control cities, I think looking at the metro overall is important to get an idea of the importance, the significance, etc. of the area overall, not just city limits.

When I think Atlanta, for example, I think of the city proper and all of its sprawling suburbs stretching outside the Beltway. I may not be in Atlanta itself, but I'm in the general vicinity of what is known as "Atlanta"  effectively.

Metro Area, city limits will make you think that Jacksonville is the most important place in Florida.

Urban Area. Metro's can be vast in land area. Urban Area gives you more of an idea of how large a place is.

Metropolitan areas have their downfalls too - largely related to the census bureau's strict definitions of metro areas using county lines. Look at Salt Lake City, for example. The city proper has only about 200k of Salt Lake County's 1.2 million people... but it doesn't stop there. The metro officially includes Salt Lake and Tooele Counties, but I don't think anybody disputes that southern Davis County is made up of suburbs and bedroom communities with a primary connection to Salt Lake City (source: I grew up in that area). However, because most of the economy of Davis County itself is up north, the entire county gets counted as part of the Ogden metropolitan area.

You could also argue over whether Ogden and Provo should even be considered separate metropolitan areas instead of lumping them in with Salt Lake City, but that's probably an issue for another thread...

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2021, 05:37:55 PM
You could also argue over whether Ogden and Provo should even be considered separate metropolitan areas instead of lumping them in with Salt Lake City, but that's probably an issue for another thread...

I think it's entirely appropriate for the thread.  Such would be a good reason not to use MSAs to begin with.

Almost exclusively metropolitan area. The only time city populations are relevant is when comparing other per capita statistics of two cities, such as crime rate, income, property value, etc. Otherwise I don't even look at city populations, and if I'm told to find "the population of Chicago" in that vague manner, I will use the metropolitan population.

With that being said, metropolitan populations can still be misleading sometimes. Some cities have outlying counties with very little relation to the city beyond it being "the closest major city" included in their metropolitan populations. More commonly, some cities have a couple of suburban communities in the corner of a certain county, yet that entire county is in the metropolitan area.

But when comparing the size of two places, metropolitan population is a better stat 100% of the time.

ALL CAPS or all lowercase?

Quote from: 1 on August 23, 2021, 06:35:44 PM
ALL CAPS or all lowercase?

ALL CAPS is more unnecessary and takes more effort, but all lowercase is more annoying.

Quote from: thspfc on August 23, 2021, 06:41:07 PM
ALL CAPS ... takes more effort

How much effort does it really take to hit the CapsLock key on the keyboard?  In fact, more often than not at work, I have CapsLock on already.  It actually takes slightly more effort for me to not type in all caps on here if I'm at work.

Based in this, I can name random states to skew my thought.

I like the beach so I'm going to the Morgantown WV area. Nevermind I'm really one state over, in the opposite side, in MD.

Quote from: US 89 on August 23, 2021, 05:37:55 PM
Metropolitan areas have their downfalls too - largely related to the census bureau's strict definitions of metro areas using county lines. Look at Salt Lake City, for example. The city proper has only about 200k of Salt Lake County's 1.2 million people... but it doesn't stop there. The metro officially includes Salt Lake and Tooele Counties, but I don't think anybody disputes that southern Davis County is made up of suburbs and bedroom communities with a primary connection to Salt Lake City (source: I grew up in that area). However, because most of the economy of Davis County itself is up north, the entire county gets counted as part of the Ogden metropolitan area.

You could also argue over whether Ogden and Provo should even be considered separate metropolitan areas instead of lumping them in with Salt Lake City, but that's probably an issue for another thread...

Especially since Point of the Mountain doesn't have a point anymore.

Quote from: Daniel Fiddler on August 23, 2021, 03:10:04 PM
Do you rank cities by METROPOLITAN AREA or CITY PROPER?

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.

Quote from: empirestate on August 24, 2021, 12:41:29 AM

Quote from: Daniel Fiddler on August 23, 2021, 03:10:04 PM
Do you rank cities by METROPOLITAN AREA or CITY PROPER?

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.

Quote from: Flint1979 on August 23, 2021, 04:58:26 PM
Urban Area. Metro's can be vast in land area. Urban Area gives you more of an idea of how large a place is.

Urban areas can be a real pig. The River Mersey at Liverpool is slightly wider than the cut off for urban areas in the UK. This means that Birkenhead and other Wirral suburbs are in a separate urban area, despite functioning as Liverpool.

Of course, if you did increase the urban area distance that little bit, then Liverpool would conjoin with Manchester, and you'd get a different incorrect figure for Liverpool's size.

Travel to Work Areas might give a more accurate picture. Which means that 'Slough and Heathrow' is the fourth largest city in the UK - consisting of lots of West London suburbs and a some towns dotted in the green belt (which was designed to stop London's urban area sprawling, and created long commutes from developments in holes around / just beyond the edge). It's not a coherent city as much as a lot of towns that are all generally considered London/London commuter towns except that fewer than a quarter of residents commute into the London TTWA, instead working in some of London's overspill/out-of-town business areas or for London's biggest airport and its support industries. Is it just part of London? Ditto other similar London-adjacent TTWAs. The thing is that these places, especially the exurbs, have their own identity (part of which is often "not London, just nearby") though the TTWAs don't tend to, being polycentric. I'd imagine Maidenhead and Uxbridge residents would think of the link between their MPs well before than their functionally being in the same tight economic unit (but then, given Slough and Heathrow are what link them that way, it's something naturally suppressed as you wouldn't want to think of them!).

As for city proper, my not-big town proper (bigger urban area that's two towns and two+ villages) has more people living it than London proper. London, the city of, is about a thousanth of the size of London (whether the urban area, regional boundaries or Met area - about 10 million, 9 million and 14 million respectively).

I tend to use urban areas rather than either cities or metropolitan areas, but even then, I think urban area boundaries can be flawed because of their single data point (commuting), even when it blatantly divides continuous urban development; and their (understandable) inability to incorporate more "fuzzy" data - shopping and leisure patterns, media markets, coverage by transit districts or other quasi-governmental agencies, etc.

California highlights the flaws in using any of these geographies:
- San Jose might have ~140K more people than San Francisco, but there's no "real-world" metric in which San Jose is considered the "more important" city - historically, culturally, economically, etc.
- San Bernardino County. Needles is part of the Riverside-San Bernardino Metropolitan Area.
- Commuting data is what keeps San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose from being one urban area (and one metropolitan area), even though it is continuous urban development (and has been for decades), and all "real-world" considerations have them as one (multi-core) area. Similar story happens in greater L.A.

Indeed, very true.  The large counties in the West (especially California) do skew the size of metropolitan areas.

I do combine San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland into one metropolitan area personally and (believe it or not) even Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino, although even though Needles is in what I consider the LA metropolitan area (by county), I sure as hell would not desire to commute into LA or even San Bernardino every day from there, I'm not sure I'd care to commute to / from Barstow!

Although in the East, counties are much smaller, metropolitan areas are much smaller for the most part.

It all depends on what I am talking about.  If I am naming a given state's largest city, than the city with the most people living in the city limits is the one that is named. 

The largest city in Texas is Houston, but there are more people living in The Metroplex.  If you want to know the largest city, then the answer is Houston.  If you want to know the largest metro area, then DFW is your answer. 

I personally like looking at city population over metro areas because there is an definite line in the sand with city population.  Metro areas and how everyone draws them changes constantly depending on how they want to skew the numbers. 

Two things in Texas: San Marcos, TX is considered, sometimes, to be in the San Antonio MSA and the Austin MSA.  So how can I be both?

The El Paso MSA is all over the map.  Sunland Park, NM borders the city limits of El Paso, yet is not counted as part of the MSA for El Paso because it is in Donna Ana County, New Mexico so it is counted as part of the Las Cruces MSA, despite being 40 miles away from Las Cruces.  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. 

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 24, 2021, 01:39:03 PM
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 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.

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 24, 2021, 12:54:32 AM

Quote from: empirestate on August 24, 2021, 12:41:29 AM
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
:bigass:

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

Quote from: kphoger on August 24, 2021, 01:53:41 PM

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 24, 2021, 01:39:03 PM
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. 

Quote from: Flint1979 on August 24, 2021, 05:43:55 PM
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.

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.

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on August 24, 2021, 06:34:09 PM
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.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 24, 2021, 05:50:06 PM

Quote from: kphoger on August 24, 2021, 01:53:41 PM

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 24, 2021, 01:39:03 PM
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.

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 24, 2021, 08:10:14 PM
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

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.

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).

Quote from: jgb191 on August 25, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
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?

Quote from: jgb191 on August 25, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
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.  :sombrero:

Chris

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 25, 2021, 01:49:54 PM

Quote from: jgb191 on August 25, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
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

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 25, 2021, 01:49:54 PM

Quote from: jgb191 on August 25, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
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.

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.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 25, 2021, 02:18:18 PM
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.

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.

Quote from: kphoger on August 25, 2021, 02:07:59 PM

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 25, 2021, 01:49:54 PM

Quote from: jgb191 on August 25, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
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

Quote from: US 89 on August 25, 2021, 02:25:14 PM
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.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 25, 2021, 02:18:18 PM

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 25, 2021, 01:49:54 PM

Quote from: jgb191 on August 25, 2021, 01:47:28 PM
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.

Metropolitan area.

Quote from: MinecraftNinja on August 25, 2021, 11:50:07 PM
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

Quote from: empirestate on August 24, 2021, 05:21:41 PM
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

Quote from: empirestate on August 26, 2021, 12:43:42 AM
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.

Quote from: empirestate on August 26, 2021, 12:43:42 AM

Quote from: MinecraftNinja on August 25, 2021, 11:50:07 PM
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  :bigass:

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2021, 08:03:12 AM
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.

QuoteNobody'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?

Quote from: DTComposer on August 26, 2021, 10:31:18 AM
If you're going to make a point about using/not using metropolitan areas, make sure you get your metropolitan areas right  :bigass:

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!

Quote from: empirestate on August 26, 2021, 08:53:32 PM

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2021, 08:03:12 AM
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.

Right, I guess that particular point applied only to your first list, the one with Phoenix listed out nine times.
All I meant was that, of course when you're specifically looking at city population, metro area population isn't useful. It isn't even relevant which metro area the city happens to be in - Phoenix is completely irrelevant to Mesa's ranking as Arizona's third largest city, which is why it's nonsensical to override Mesa with Phoenix.

Quote from: empirestate on August 26, 2021, 08:53:32 PM

QuoteNobody'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?

It does, and I noticed that after my previous post. I didn't assume it to be taken literally.

I think the point is that neither city population nor metro area population is always the more appropriate one to use - I don't think anyone has said such, and if they did, they probably didn't mean it to be taken literally.

Quote from: empirestate on August 26, 2021, 08:53:32 PM

Quote from: DTComposer on August 26, 2021, 10:31:18 AM
If you're going to make a point about using/not using metropolitan areas, make sure you get your metropolitan areas right  :bigass:

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?)  ;-)

Ha ha, yes, good topic for a thread split.

Quote from: empirestate on August 26, 2021, 08:53:32 PM
Also, I am surprised to learn that #10, Laguna Woods, is in the Bay Area!

Per this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_California
#10 should be Oakley, beating out Laguna Woods by a couple of months.

EDIT: I see this list:
https://calafco.org/resources/incorporated-cities/california-cities-incorporation-date
Which has Laguna Woods listed 10th and Oakley 11th, but they are out of order based on the dates, so I see the confusion.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 24, 2021, 01:39:03 PM
I personally like looking at city population over metro areas because there is an definite line in the sand with city population.  Metro areas and how everyone draws them changes constantly depending on how they want to skew the numbers. 

Who is "everyone"? MSAs are defined by the Census Bureau. Their data points are constant. And I would argue the "line in the sand" doesn't exist for cities, since many of them (especially in the South and West) gain significant population through annexation.

For example, Austin has annexed 42 square miles of land just since 1999, while San Francisco, hemmed in by water and other cities, hasn't grown since the 1800s.

Quote from: ethanhopkin14 on August 24, 2021, 01:39:03 PM
Two things in Texas: San Marcos, TX is considered, sometimes, to be in the San Antonio MSA and the Austin MSA.  So how can I be both?

Can you cite a source where Hays County is included with San Antonio? Every list the Census Bureau has since they first considered Hays County "metropolitan" (1973) puts it with Austin.
https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/demo/metro-micro/historical-delineation-files.html

Quote from: empirestate on August 24, 2021, 12:41:29 AM

Quote from: Daniel Fiddler on August 23, 2021, 03:10:04 PM
Do you rank cities by METROPOLITAN AREA or CITY PROPER?

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.

Not to be "that guy" , but Hampton Roads itself is a body of water, not a city. Hampton is the city.

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2021, 11:41:58 PM
All I meant was that, of course when you're specifically looking at city population, metro area population isn't useful. It isn't even relevant which metro area the city happens to be in - Phoenix is completely irrelevant to Mesa's ranking as Arizona's third largest city, which is why it's nonsensical to override Mesa with Phoenix.

Exactly right–just the point I was trying to make by listing it that way.

QuoteI think the point is that neither city population nor metro area population is always the more appropriate one to use - I don't think anyone has said such, and if they did, they probably didn't mean it to be taken literally.

Yes, again. And some people have definitely said such–literally, or at least as a poll selection. Since I would also assume that these answers can't be meant literally, my question now is, what context is being applied that isn't present in the OP, nor stated in the answer?

But, to ask it that way is boring–illustrating the point with outrageous lists is more interesting and will probably engage more lively conversation. :-)

(Also: Nebraska.) :sombrero:

Quote from: empirestate on August 27, 2021, 11:35:55 AM

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2021, 11:41:58 PM
All I meant was that, of course when you're specifically looking at city population, metro area population isn't useful. It isn't even relevant which metro area the city happens to be in - Phoenix is completely irrelevant to Mesa's ranking as Arizona's third largest city, which is why it's nonsensical to override Mesa with Phoenix.

Exactly right–just the point I was trying to make by listing it that way.

Okay, if that was your point, I think we're on the same page, then. I interpreted the Phoenix post as a general criticism of using metro area population.

Quote from: empirestate on August 27, 2021, 11:35:55 AM

QuoteI think the point is that neither city population nor metro area population is always the more appropriate one to use - I don't think anyone has said such, and if they did, they probably didn't mean it to be taken literally.

Yes, again. And some people have definitely said such–literally, or at least as a poll selection. Since I would also assume that these answers can't be meant literally, my question now is, what context is being applied that isn't present in the OP, nor stated in the answer?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but if you're looking for a replacement for the word "city" that would eliminate the discussion of whether or not it should be taken literally, simply "urban area" could work.

Or how about this: Preferred measurement: city proper or metropolitan area?

Quote from: webny99 on August 27, 2021, 12:26:59 PM
Okay, if that was your point, I think we're on the same page, then. I interpreted the Phoenix post as a general criticism of using metro area population.

Ah, no...it was illustration of the absurdity of using metro areas altogether as a substitute for cities, when cities are clearly what is being ranked. (And vice versa, of course.)

Quote from: empirestate on August 27, 2021, 11:35:55 AM
Yes, again. And some people have definitely said such–literally, or at least as a poll selection. Since I would also assume that these answers can't be meant literally, my question now is, what context is being applied that isn't present in the OP, nor stated in the answer?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but if you're looking for a replacement for the word "city" that would eliminate the discussion of whether or not it should be taken literally, simply "urban area" could work.

Or how about this: Preferred measurement: city proper or metropolitan area?
[/quote]

I don't think there's any doubt that the OP isn't to be taken literally. But if it is, then the answer must always be "cities", whereas if it isn't, it seems to me the answer should always be "both".

Therefore, an answer of "metro areas" suggests that the question being answered is an altogether different one–and if so, what is it? That would depend on what missing context is being applied by the answerer, and it could be different context for each different participant.