So they can become metro areas, but that have the stats too. Like yes Wake County has 2.5 mill, to below a mill in Durham County-they might need to add Durham Orange and a few other counties!!! Cause when it comes to business it hurts us without Durham!!!
Payton literally just said:
So the two conditions would read, for the Triangle, like this; since Wake County would be the ācentralā county and the Raleigh-Cary MSA as the ācentralā CBSA, Iāll call them both the āWake Co. ecosystemā:
A. At least 25% of workers living in Durham County work in the Wake Co. ecosystem ā false
B. At least 25% of jobs in Durham Co. are held by workers living in the Wake Co. ecosystem ā true
I remember several people saying before that Durham wanted to be its own MSA, and they got that rule change when the OMB started using todayās CBSA definitions back in 2003. But that was nearly two decades (and a Recession and a pandemic) ago. If enough statistics nerds insist on this, is there a chance that Durham and Orange county commissioners could change their minds about this?
RIP, grad student. Glad Iām not in that field 
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You can play around with this. From what I can tell, a lot of metros have counties that donāt meet the 25% threshold. There is some nuance Iām missing Iām sure.
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The huge amount of biomedical and pharma jobs we have won are almost all in Durham county so that wonāt help our commuting patterns.
I mean I agree, all this talk about census statistics can get boring and mind-numbing real quick. Thatās why I only look at this thread like once a week or so.
Like it or hate it, though, it still matters. Census numbers and commuter statistics are at the root of what people see when they google things like Raleigh number of jobs or research triangle economy. Unless youāre looking at third-rate listicles that pick ābest places to liveā with absolutely no evidence, this is the sort of data that a lot of people look at to say whether the Triangle is worth living and investing in.
If RTP had been carved out such that the majority of it was in Wake, rather than in Durham (Co.), the criteria for a single MSA would likely be met. But, weāll never really know, will we?
Oh, the power and influence of invisible lines.
As Wake grows larger and larger, it will become harder and harder for Wake to send 25% of its commuters to the RTP area in Durham Co., and that qualification rule is likely to not be met at some point (if it already hasnāt been).
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Whatās particularly interesting to see in the statistics is that Durham often reports higher wages while Wake shows the highest household incomes in the state.
In Durhamās case, this is likely due to both RTP and Duke having an over-weighted representation in the data of a less populated county, compared to Wake, while many of those who have those jobs live in Wake or Orange.
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Appleās massive RTP campus was suppose to be on the Wake County side. 
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Yes. The Apple land is just south of Cisco, NetApp and Biogen.
Even if Apple does come to Wake with lots of high paying jobs, the statistical impact to Raleigh will be more diluted because of Wakeās size. If Apple went to the Durham side of the Park, it would have a much more significant impact on the overall data of the county.
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I mean it would be in there best interest to vote to comeback in the Raleigh-Cary MSA!!!
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Interesting diagram and link was making the rounds on twitter this weekend. Showing the cities with the most new home starts per their current population. Raleigh had a respectable showing. Interesting to see the top ones and the areas with nothing by on the top 50 list. U.S. Cities With the Most New Housing in 2020
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Very interesting to see areas not on the list. Little surprised that 'Bama has 3!!! towns on the list! I knew Huntsville was growing, but I didnāt realize the other two were booming as well.
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If you scroll down in that story, youāll see that Raleigh-Cary was 16th in population growth (by %). So, with an 18th in housing and 16th in percentage growth, it would seem that the area is doing a pretty good job with that balance.
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Here is a hard oneā¦does anyone know if there is a website where you can see or find the exact % or raw numbers of increase or decrease of population for a city by zip-code/area of/region of/etc.? I was just thinking that it would be fascinating to see āwhereā in the city people are moving to or leavingā¦(i.e. DTR vs. NHās vs. N Raleigh, etc.) 
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The census population numbers will be delivered to the President probably within the week. Most of the rest will be delivered around April 1st. Using Census information will probably be the best and easiest way to get the information you want
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Thank you! 
Are you aware of a specific web-page on the Census website that offers that type of information? As even past information would be really cool to seeā¦ 
The first thing that comes to mind is Imaps. You can display census tracts and census block groups and they have the population numbers for 2010. You can compare those numbers to the new census data whenever it is released.
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The Census tracts were my first thought as well, but you will know better than me.
My gut tells me that more stable Census tracts will ebb and flow over time as population ages, dies off (or moves off) and is replaced by younger families. Let me give an example of what I mean. I grew up in North Ridge. My family moved into our new home in 1974, in an immediate part of the neighborhood that was built mainly in the 1971-1973 time frame. Nearly all of the homes at that time were occupied by nuclear families with children. As time passed, many of these homes became empty nests (as is my childhood home now) and the population decreased, even as the neighborhood remained desirable. There was a period of time where the immediate part of the neighborhood was nearly childless. In the last few years, many of these empty nests have turned over to new buyers who are bringing children back to the neighborhood. I think that this plays out all over the established suburban neighborhoods in the city.
Separately, thereās been a ton of new housing in key nodes in the city like downtown, North Hills, Cameron Village, Brier Creek, the expanding tentacle that leads to Wake Forest, and NE Raleigh in general. Itās going to be interesting to see which formerly ebbing parts of cities are once again beginning to flow.
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I just get lost on all the terminology and alphabet soup. OMB, MSA, SBSA, EIM. I understand the importance of it. But just as someone reading the thread, without knowing the jargon, makes me dizzy.
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