Quote:
Originally Posted by deja vu
There's definitely some commuters, but it is a bit of a hike. From core to core it can take half an hour to an hour with traffic. Holland has a strong local economy of its own though, anchored by manufacturing, tech, healthcare, tourism / hospitality, and education. Some of the biggest employers are Haworth, Herman Miller, Johnson Controls, Perrigo, and Gentex.
It is exciting to see all of this development happening on Michigan's west side!
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I was calculating some MSA and CSA metro commuter rates the other week, and was kind of surprised to find out how truly polycentric West Michigan is. I'd always just assumed Grand Rapids was a way bigger pull than it actually turns out to be. For instance, before Ottawa County joined the MSA earlier this decade, Muskegon was actually pulled into the greater Grand Rapids CSA via Ottawa and not Kent. So the weak link in the triangle is Muskegon-Grand Rapids. In fact, the gap between how many workers Ottawa sends to Kent and how many of Ottawa's workers are from Kent is actually smaller than in a lot of metros.
Another crazy thing is that Newaygo apparently fell out of Grand Rapids MSA earlier this decade. Though it still has more than enough commuting to be in the CSA - nearly as much as the connection between GR and Ionia - it's not because it's not a metropolitan/urban county. Ionia also has more than enough commuting to Grand Rapids to be in its MSA, but it's not because it keeps just enough of its own workers to retain its status as a seperate metropolitan area.
Metro Grand Rapids is really a mess cross-commuting. lol