DC-Balt Overtakes Chicago As 3rd Biggest CSA (Washington: neighborhoods, statistics)
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It has been outpacing in growth for a couple decades now so this was bound to happen. People hate seeing numbers on paper for some reason.
IMO though, my ears will pique up when the combined DC+ Baltimore MSA's (9.2 million) about 8,000 sq mi surpass Chicago MSA (9.5 million) which is about 7,200 sq mi. Which will most likely be before end of the decade. Even then Chicago's going to appear more cohesively developed than DC+Balt which is more like two overlapping bubbles.
The DC-Baltimore area is a heavily populated mega region, people will just have to grapple with that fact now. It's not Milwaukee and Chicago, it's not New York and Philly. At this point it is a multi-nodal metro region like the Bay Area. Even alone DC's metro is number 6 with the 5th largest economy, so it doesn't need Baltimore. It doesn't make one city (DC) larger than Chicago head to head, for those who freak out about that. Chicago's urban scale is certainly greater than DC-Balt, but the overall regions are close in population, and the density numbers are similar in aggregate.
Last edited by the resident09; 07-01-2022 at 04:35 PM..
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit
Does it matter? There's no shared identity or sense of being in the same metro between Baltimore and Washington. This is just empty statistics.
Shared identity has nothing to do with what metro area, or combined statistical area population tally's up to. Like literally 0. The cities are part of the same CSA because of the suburban connection, and commuting ties, not downtown Baltimore and DC. You should know that much. Probably should check your feelings at the door when brining up relevance of population statistics.
Shared identity has nothing to do with what metro area, or combined statistical area population tally's up to. Like literally 0. The cities are part of the same CSA because of the suburban connection, and commuting ties, not downtown Baltimore and DC. You should know that much. Probably should check your feelings at the door when brining up relevance of population statistics.
That doesn't have anything to do with what I said - I asked "does it matter?".
It's not surprising or a new fact that there's a Baltimore-Washington CSA because the suburban areas overlap in Maryland, so you're going to have the required commute relationships to form a CSA.
But when you look at statistics you have to look at what they actually say and whether that has any particular relevance - in this case I don't see it.
The D.C. area is growing at a faster pace than Chicago, which is also not a new thing and there's better metrics to show that, but when we say the CSA 'overtakes' Chicago, what are we saying? Are we saying that makes D.C. bigger than Chicago? Not really. Are we saying it makes D.C. the 3rd biggest metro in the country? Not really.
So what are we saying and why should it matter to people?
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,138 posts, read 7,597,412 times
Reputation: 5796
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit
That doesn't have anything to do with what I said - I asked "does it matter?".
It's not surprising or a new fact that there's a Baltimore-Washington CSA because the suburban areas overlap in Maryland, so you're going to have the required commute relationships to form a CSA.
But when you look at statistics you have to look at what they actually say and whether that has any particular relevance - in this case I don't see it.
The D.C. area is growing at a faster pace than Chicago, which is also not a new thing and there's better metrics to show that, but when we say the CSA 'overtakes' Chicago, what are we saying? Are we saying that makes D.C. bigger than Chicago? Not really. Are we saying it makes D.C. the 3rd biggest metro in the country? Not really.
So what are we saying and why should it matter to people?
You don't see what? When major cities, regions, metros, CSA's whatever you call them switch population ranks articles get published. That's what happened. The Chicagoland region is now 4th after DC-Baltimore-NOVA. The two are apples in oranges in my book anyway, but it's not like the Washington Post is making an article about this. For those who follow population data and metrics, as the article states CSA is only one metric. "DC" is not the third biggest city in the country. The greater region surrounding it which includes Baltimore's metro is third most populated however.
No one really cares, it's an article bringing up statistical facts. The two mega region's population ranks switched DC-Balt 3rd, Chicagoland 4th.
From the comments section of the GGW piece. DW Rowlands is a Brookings demographer.
Quote:
DW Rowlands on June 30, 2022 at 1:02 pm
One quibble: technically, it’s the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that determines metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and combined statistical area (CSA) boundaries, _not_ the Census Bureau.
Sometime this summer, the Census will release their new “urban area” definitions, based off the 2020 Census and a new set of criteria different from what they used in 2000 and 2010. These will be used to define MSAs and CSAs for the next decade sometime next winter, so it’ll be quite interesting to see what the results look like then. The changes may result in some rearrangement of the list, along with the fact that Connecticut is changing their county borders in a way that may get part of the state into the New York MSA for the first time ever.
Interesting. Yea the DC region has really experienced explosive growth since 9/11. Not so sure about the Baltimore region. I know the city of Baltimore has been seeing declines, not too sure about the Baltimore suburbs though.
I’ve moved to DC 3 years ago and still haven’t visited Baltimore.
You should visit Baltimore some time. There are some cool neighborhoods up there.
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