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View Poll Results: Which is more accurate/better; MSA or CSA?
MSA 29 63.04%
CSA 17 36.96%
Voters: 46. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 5:19 PM
Dariusb Dariusb is offline
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MSA or CSA?

Which in your opinion is a better way of measuring a city/areas importance/worth/reach? I've seen this briefly touched on in other threads but not as a separate topic. If it has then I apologize. Anyway, let's discuss.
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Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 5:27 PM
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in most cases, UA best captures the true size of a given "city", IMO.

The county mash-up game of the MSA/CSA definition is more regional in scope.
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  #3  
Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 5:31 PM
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Urban Area for me as well.
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hmmm....
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  #4  
Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 5:53 PM
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It Depends on the CSA

NYC-Philly No thats absurd

San Francisco-San Jose- Yes

DC Baltimore- yes

Phoenix- Payson..... What the hell>????
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  #5  
Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 6:40 PM
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Depends on the City...
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Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 6:49 PM
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CSA isn't intended to be a measure of metropolitan population - it's about regional macro-metropolitan connections. There are only a few odd cases like San Francisco-San Jose and LA-Riverside where they're more reflective of the actual metro than the MSA.
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Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 7:02 PM
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CSA makes most sense to me, it has the least amount of arbitrary cut-offs.
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Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 8:01 PM
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The Salt Lake CSA (~2.4 million) looks ridiculous on a map because it's so large in terms of area, but the population is pretty close to representative of the three MSAs (three valleys) that are continuous through two geographic bottlenecks. More than 90% of the population of the CSA is concentrated in four of the smaller, adjacent counties and the outer, larger counties are almost completely wilderness and farmland. For example, the Great Salt Lake and Bonneville Salt Flats (and much more) are entirely within the Salt Lake CSA boundary.

The SLC MSA is close to representative of the population of just the Salt Lake Valley (~1.2 million). Almost all of the people in the MSA would say they were "from Salt Lake" if asked, whereas people from the other two MSAs may not. Maybe that makes it a better demarcation for what constitutes the city, but it's also roughly equivalent to Salt Lake County so I'm not sure what the added value of the MSA itself is.

So I guess my answer for SLC is MSA but that answer may be very case-specific.
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Old Posted Aug 19, 2020, 8:34 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
It Depends on the CSA

NYC-Philly No thats absurd

San Francisco-San Jose- Yes

DC Baltimore- yes

Phoenix- Payson..... What the hell>????
NY and Philly are not a CSA and a far meeting the requirements.
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Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 12:28 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The North One View Post
CSA makes most sense to me, it has the least amount of arbitrary cut-offs.
Same here.
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  #11  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 1:49 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dariusb View Post
Which in your opinion is a better way of measuring a city/areas importance/worth/reach? I've seen this briefly touched on in other threads but not as a separate topic. If it has then I apologize. Anyway, let's discuss.
MSA and CSA factor into an area's importance, worth, and reach but it doesn't measure any of those things. Drawing a straight line between MSA/CSA and these things is lazy and can lead to erroneous conclusions. It's important to look at what data represents and what it doesn't. Many things aren't quantifiable yet most people try to quantify them anyway.
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Last edited by isaidso; Aug 20, 2020 at 1:54 AM. Reason: u
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  #12  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 2:03 AM
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I wish they would restructure the size of some MSA's to not include vast areas of very low population land.

For one, it really messes with the density calculations which low balls the true density given the ratio of people/Total sq-miles.

Los Angeles MSA comes to mind. Vast areas of mountains and a little bit of desert I believe that are counted in the overall square miles.

But not just MSA's, but the size of some cities.

Anchorage Alaska.... is almost 2000 square miles. Just absurd.

The Phoenix MSA, is about 14,600 square miles. Kinda messes with the density calculations with so much redundant land where the only thing that's buried in that land is blue crystal and barrels of money. Its just not needed.

Restructure the MSA's to get a more precise picture.
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Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 2:04 AM
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Neither. Urban area
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Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 2:05 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by streetscaper View Post
Urban Area for me as well.
Same
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  #15  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 2:53 AM
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Very interesting responses and thanks for explaining and sharing examples.
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  #16  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 3:06 AM
LA21st LA21st is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
I wish they would restructure the size of some MSA's to not include vast areas of very low population land.

For one, it really messes with the density calculations which low balls the true density given the ratio of people/Total sq-miles.

Los Angeles MSA comes to mind. Vast areas of mountains and a little bit of desert I believe that are counted in the overall square miles.

But not just MSA's, but the size of some cities.

Anchorage Alaska.... is almost 2000 square miles. Just absurd.

The Phoenix MSA, is about 14,600 square miles. Kinda messes with the density calculations with so much redundant land where the only thing that's buried in that land is blue crystal and barrels of money. Its just not needed.

Restructure the MSA's to get a more precise picture.
It's alot of inhabitable desert in LA county lol.
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  #17  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 3:06 AM
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For most cities the answer to me is somewhere between urbanized area and the MSA.
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  #18  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 3:12 AM
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Urban Area, but also MSA over CSA
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  #19  
Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 4:32 AM
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MSA usually makes the most sense, but there are exceptions.

San Francisco-San Jose being separate MSAs doesn't make sense (even though I understand the technical reason for it).

Worcester being in a separate MSA from Boston doesn't make any sense, especially when Rockingham and Hampshire Counties in New Hampshire are in the Boston MSA. It's also hard to separate Bristol County, Mass from the Boston MSA and place it entirely in the Providence MSA, given that Bristol County's northern edge in Easton is all of 19 miles south of Boston's Hyde Park. I get that it's a stretch to think of Boston and Providence as a truly single metro, but their borders are less than 30 linear miles apart; picking which suburb is Boston's most southern and which is Providence's most northern is really hard. I grew up in Foxboro, which is exactly halfway between the two on I-95, and I still don't know where you'd put the border. Realistically you'd need to split Bristol and Norfolk Counties up, and the Census doesn't do that for MSAs or CSAs. Regardless, splitting Worcester into its own MSA is weird.
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Old Posted Aug 20, 2020, 12:52 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
MSA usually makes the most sense, but there are exceptions.

San Francisco-San Jose being separate MSAs doesn't make sense (even though I understand the technical reason for it).

Worcester being in a separate MSA from Boston doesn't make any sense, especially when Rockingham and Hampshire Counties in New Hampshire are in the Boston MSA. It's also hard to separate Bristol County, Mass from the Boston MSA and place it entirely in the Providence MSA, given that Bristol County's northern edge in Easton is all of 19 miles south of Boston's Hyde Park. I get that it's a stretch to think of Boston and Providence as a truly single metro, but their borders are less than 30 linear miles apart; picking which suburb is Boston's most southern and which is Providence's most northern is really hard. I grew up in Foxboro, which is exactly halfway between the two on I-95, and I still don't know where you'd put the border. Realistically you'd need to split Bristol and Norfolk Counties up, and the Census doesn't do that for MSAs or CSAs. Regardless, splitting Worcester into its own MSA is weird.
There are several other examples: New York and Bridgeport, Detroit and Ann Arbor, Los Angeles and San Bernardino, Cleveland and Akron and the list goes on and on.

That's why to me CSA is vastly superior to MSA. It only inflates some metro areas with a couple of rural countries that makes no difference on the grand scheme of things. On the other hand those examples I mentioned above create massive distortions.
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