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Originally Posted by EastSideHBG
I get what you are saying but I lived in Harrisburg for many years and a majority of the people spent their time and money in Baltimore vs Philly when going to a bigger city. Baltimore Co. is only one county aware from Harrisburg, there's many counties in between Harrisburg and Philly (and those counties have their own very clear identities). There are Eagles fans and what not in Harrisburg but way more Steelers fans and while Pittsburgh is much further away than Philly is, I found more similarities between those two cities' mindsets than HBG and Philly if you are comparing big cities within the PA borders.
York County also draws HBG commuters (not as much as it used to, though, as York has really developed its own identity) and that drags one even further away from Philly and closer to Baltimore.
Where are people in Hagerstown working? Spending their money? What economy is drawing its residents? If you are comparing Hagerstown to DC and then Harrisburg to Philly in this regard, it's not even a comparison.
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This is my point exactly. The Lehigh Valley, Reading, Lancaster, Harrisburg, York, Carlisle, Hagerstown, Frederick, Winchester -- on down all the way to at least Roanoke -- is a region of microcregions. Hagerstown's connection to DC is quite as tenuous as Harrisburg's is to Philly or Baltimore (in fact, I'd suggest that if you look at road links, Hagerstown has a slightly stronger connection to
Baltimore), and DC
itself is the upstart in this part of the country. I can guarantee you that, until recently, the Shenandoah Valley did not look to DC as "the city" (though I dunno whether they'd've looked towards Tidewater or Baltimore) -- yet there Winchester is in the DC CSA.
I'd argue that Hagerstown has about as strong a commute linkage to Baltimore and DC as Lancaster and Harrisburg do to Philly.
Hence either you consider both Harrisburg and Hagerstown their own separate CSAs -- or you consider neither. The cultural-region density is high around here, but if you analyze most of the East enough, you'll find that it isn't
abnormally high. Delmarva Tidewater is a different beast than eastern North Carolina Tidewater ... that doesn't mean they aren't both part of Tidewater.
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Lancaster has its own identity and is giving HBG a run for its money and quite frankly I like Lancaster better, its DT is now leaps and bounds better than HBG's as far activity levels go and only getting better. HBG's current leadership is AWFUL and it continues to stagnate while Lancaster is moving forward. Also, I know far more HBG commuters heading towards Lancaster to work vs the other way around. In South Central PA one can't just look at a map and say, "Oh these all should be together," because it doesn't work like that, it's a very territorial and disconnected place and a mere 15 miles can make you feel like you are on another planet. HBG has the state government but outside of that there's not much you can get in HBG that you can't get in other parts of the region.
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The point here is that the Census CSA definitions are supposed to be set
quantitatively. Obviously Lancaster County has commute sheds into three different CSAs under the current definition -- as well as its own MSA. I agree that Lancaster is a more pleasant city than Harrisburg (which, like most governance cities, has a weird sterility to it). The problem is that in the Northeast, there's a point where quantitative measurements break down --
the entire Northeast would, after all, be part of the New York CSA under a strict quantitative measurement because the commute sheds all interlink -- which means qualitative biases got introduced, and those biases clearly disfavor Philadelphia.
After all, the Lehigh Valley is -- and has always been -- culturally more closely linked to Philadelphia than New York. Does it, then, make sense that it's part of New York's CSA absent a New York bias? Of course not.
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That's because other places in the U.S. aren't built like PA is. When you go to many of the newer sunbelt cities you have the big city and then NOTHING. Here in this part of the country one could live a very comfortable life and never have to set foot in the big city for anything.
I love Philly and of course economically it is very important to the state but due to its location and with how big our state is and all of the regional identities, it doesn't have the draw you may think it does once you hit a certain point.
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That, however, is true for the vast tracts of the West. The Mid-Atlantic is an old region, and like the country's other old (and even adolescent *Midwest* *Appalachia*) regions, it is highly fragmented into distinct subregions.
When it comes to Boston, New York, and DC, it's clear that the Census seems to have decided that if there was one commuter between the two regions they should count as part of the CSA. They didn't hold that standard to Philadelphia.
That's a double standard, and it's bullshit.
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