Raleigh and Statistical Area Population

The Pub
1049

That’s an interesting read. Bottom line is that Chapel Hill was for whatever kept their name in a MSA designation, and being with Durham after their recommended change would allow them to have it. That said, going to 25% of the largest city’s population disqualifies them from having their name in the Durham MSA now. They no longer meet their own requested threshold because Durham has been growing while Chapel Hill hasn’t. Now what would they recommend if they couldn’t get their name in a MSA?

I also found this interesting from the report:
The population of the proposed Durham metropolitan area would total approximately 360,000, according to 1999 population estimates. The proposed Raleigh metro area would have a population of approximately 750,000 (1999 estimate).
Essentially, Wake County alone is now more populated than the entirety of the Triangle’s population in 1999.

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1050

I don’t think the current Town Council would care as much -if they’re not openly okay with that.

The town hired consultants who revealed that Chapel Hill needs to build nearly 450 new housing units per year to keep up with demand -and that was back in 2020. Combine this with how we have the lowest housing-to-job ratio in the region where nearly 90% of Chapel Hill workers have to commute in from elsewhere, and I think it basically means Chapel Hill knows they can’t handle the current demand for housing, and needs to be shielded from attention to do so as they build up additional supplies. Not being named in the MSA would indirectly help to achieve that, I think (in the same way lazy reporters and prospectors read that data and forget Raleigh and Durham “should” belong together).

While we’re on it, Chapel Hill is also looking into long-term solutions for that in policy and in future developments, but that doesn’t change the fact that Chapel Hill needs a lot of time and effort to have the bandwidth for new developments, again. Still, this makes us much better than Palo Alto, CA, where we’re compared against but their leaders have seemingly denied the existence of their housing crisis and have been doubling down on their opposition to affordable housing and other market dynamics problems not unlike Chapel Hill’s.

Speaking of MSA definitions, it seems like the OMB acknowledged the three comments they received last year on re-combining the Triangle into a single statistical area when they considered process changes, but that didn’t happen (and we’re keeping the 2003 rules that split our MSAs apart) because we still didn’t meet the criteria to merge back together. What are your thoughts on that, @John?

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1051

Well, I think it’s obvious that I think that there’s a flaw in the methodology that is best exemplified by what it’s done to the Triangle as a singular market; and I think that the applied methodology further separates Raleigh and Durham as the Raleigh-Cary MSA continues to put population distance year after year on Durham-Chapel Hill. It would seem to me that with changing professional work patterns adopting hybrid and full-time WFH policies, commuting metrics that “allow” reunification will never materialize.

If we look at how the Triangle is viewed vis-a-vis Nashville: CSA to CSA, the impact of how the OMB defines each by MSA couldn’t be more different. While both state capitals anchor fast growing areas, Nashville’s MSA area is about 275% larger than the Raleigh MSA land area. At the CSA level where the two areas are most comparable in area and overall regionalism, the two are literally side by side in population ranking with the Triangle overtaking Nashville by only 1,201 per the latest 2021 estimate. Regardless of that reality, I’d bet that most people unfamiliar with the Triangle would never guess that to be true. This is because data usually defaults to the MSA numbers where the Triangle is diminished. Heck, even Charlotte likes to look at the Triangle area as two MSAs because it’s less threatening to their position at the top of the NC food chain.
In 2030 Raleigh-Cary will likely be sitting around 1.7M without a change to its MSA designation, and the Triangle will still be viewed below its actual weight class.

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1052

So they haven’t changed the definitions since 2000 plus I was one of the three comments I did all three. So what you’re basically saying we just have to hope they merge us as one again. Because this separation has really not benefitted us. @keita

1053

So this is not gonna happen I’m furious.

1054

With the amount of information available today to decision makers, I do not think it matters. Heck, it may help. We get 2 of everything. One for each MSA. Most people outside this region lump us together anyway. Any major developer knows the relationship. Rather density than worrying about adding square miles to achieve population numbers anyway.

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1055

Perhaps they merge us and overlook it and merge it anyway. But this hurts chances for MLB To Raleigh, And an Airport HUB, and being Fortune 500’s to Raleigh. And it even hurts transit proposals.

1056

Everyone goes on about MSA’s but nobody wants to mention about how comically wrong the CSA is? Is there any reason how Wilson County got lumped in with Rocky Mount or how Rocky Mount is its own CSA?

NYC has farmland 100 miles away in Connecticut and Pennsylvania in their CSA. Pittsburgh has Steubenville, OH and Wheeling, WV. Yet ours cuts off 30 miles away?

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1057

During the HQ2 selection process, Raleigh was constantly published nationally as the smallest market to make the shortlist at 1.2 million, despite also mentioning the credentials of the entire metro inclusive of all 3 universities. This sort of stuff doesn’t just get ignored. It matters. While it may be true that we wouldn’t have gotten HQ2, maybe we could have been thrown the bone that went to Nashville?

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1058

I disagree. Not why we lost to Nashville. Nashville has much more active downtown along with other urban amenities that Amazon was looking for. Nothing to do with CSS MSA

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1059

I agree with you that measuring the shares of out-of-county commuters is not a very good way to do things (with the Triangle being one of the most egregious examples) -and like you said, the political and back-of-the-napkin math implications are obvious if you know where to look.

But I guess I didn’t consider, until now, that you were implying that that problem that ran far deeper: that the entire idea of looking at commuting metrics at all is fundamentally not useful. That seems like a more radical (but also interesting!) critique than to just call for definition changes, but I’m not sure what a better alternative would be…??

Because of the threshold to become an MSA may be too low, and Rocky Mount qualifies to have its own MSA. This is because they house enough residents (146k, versus a 50k minimum), and more people who live in places like Wilson Co. commute there than into the Raleigh-Cary MSA. CSAs form when there a MSA exists to be at its core, and Rocky Mount just so happens to do that.

I think that’s true for two groups of people: casual observers who just like to see the Triangle’s popularity as if it’s economic ESPN, and developers who run more detailed market analyses and do their own due diligence with precision as a non-negotiable.

But there are other people who can also benefit from demographics analyses by geography, but I'm struggling to believe they're as invested in doing things "right" as developers. (click to see who!)

  • politicians who have other competing interests, and want simple evidence that can help them craft stories and support agendas

  • companies that run thought experiments on big relocations, and want simple fiduciary values to help them identify specific vibes to quickly reach conclusions with minimum due diligence

  • journalists and other internet entities who want to quickly jump to conclusions about our local economies, and want a few, simple numbers to help build that message with minimum nuance

I think that’s what John is saying: people tend to lump Raleigh and Durham together, anyways, but the current ways we collect and report data as a nation forces people to make unintuitive distinctions. The process that exists now is based on a poor method with unintended consequences, and it seems like the increased investment in our region is worth the red tape headaches needed to make that happen.

Also, I dove into the three comments about the Triangle’s CSA, and I felt like it made sense why the OMB didn’t find them compelling.

And... I'll be honest... I wouldn't have seriously paid attention to us, either, if I was them. (click to see why!)

  • @Yimbyforlife’s comment. Not much else to say here; congrats on becoming a part of the permanent record of the National Archives, I guess?

  • A geographer and blogger called out the OMB’s methods, but it was more of a philosophical criticism against implicit urban bias. His comment included attachments that presented Virginia’s planning districts system as a starting point. Unfortunately, it only mentioned Raleigh in passing, the comment started off sounding standoffish and accusatory, and the attached presentation also looked like it came from the 1990s and still would’ve made people want to claw their eyes out.

  • The Research Triangle Regional Partnership’s Executive Director made solid points in favor of using alternative metrics to commuting patterns for measuring regional growth. However, that point was hidden in a letter that could just be summarized as “please make an exception just for the Triangle :pleading_face:”. He also didn’t really address any of the actual questions the OMB wanted comments on, nor did he otherwise hit them where it hurts, in my view.

In comparison, changes for a different rule were put on hold because of a much more successful torrent of comments. The OMB wanted to raise the minimum population size of a “metropolitan area” from 50k residents to 100k, but they received 712 comments from across the country in opposition to that out of a total of 734. If we want to make actually have a shot at making a difference, I think we need to learn from how they made statistical and sociological arguments, plus how they got so many people together to write comments.

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1060

The commuting data elevates a single metric, and suggests that what we do and where we go to make money matters above all else. While useful as a puzzle piece in understanding how a metro area works (pun intended), it ignores a whole host of other metrics that tie us together like our singular media market, our major transportation hubs like RDU that lives in one MSA but clearly serves both. It ignores the way we play and socialize like attending performing arts and sporting events. It ignores that folks in west Cary and Morrisville go to the mall at Southpoint in Durham or that the major shopping options for those in southeast Durham are at Brier Creek in Raleigh. It completely fails to consider the foundation of the Triangle’s economy that emerged from the partnership and cooperation among 3 major universities that are now in 2 different MSAs, and has its namesake actually straddling two different MSAs. I also think that contiguous development matters as well, and we have all seen how Cary now bleeds into Chatham and Durham and Raleigh cross into each other’s MSA core county.
I’m not saying that commuting patterns are irrelevant, I’m just saying that they aren’t the only metric that should be considered.

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1061

Maybe. But it should be noted that of those at Amazon that did the in-depth research before-hand, the Triangle was considered a top 3 pick. Once the executives started looking, we were not. That, plus the confusion when they rolled out the finalists on whether Durham was actually included in the bid (it was, but the wording made it sound like they weren’t) does lead credence to the fact our perception is a bit less than reality.

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1062

If Raleigh was in the top 3 or so that sort of proves my point. It does not have to be official for Raleigh and Durham to be considered one region when vying for very large projects. Press one button for MSA press another for CSA. These are highly paid consultants and site selectors, they know what to look for. They can see through the artificial MSA easily. If we lose out to Nashville or Austin it’s not because of population it’s other factors.

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1063

No i disagree with you on that Raleigh-Durham need to be combined MSAs because 1 were lacking another professional sports team preferably MLB, and Fortune 500 do look over us I think that’s a factor the commuter rail funding or any future transit funding goes into limbo. I’m sure if commuter rail was down earlier I’m sure our metro would be one again. And if 2000 hadn’t happened with the split up I’m sure Senator Dole would’ve blessed our original commuter rail plan.

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1064

Need a stadium plan and an investor before any pro sports considers us. Charlotte and Nashville both have that. We were extremely lucky with the hurricanes, we had a new stadium. Raleigh did not have the density back in 2000 for light rail . Still not sure we do today either. Lots of work from home options in Raleigh’s economy, with still no centralized employment center. We are a new Sunbelt city with spread out residential and employment.

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1065

I still think you are underselling perception. The number-crunching and the decision-making are not always done in the same room. Like with Amazon, the numbers did not support NYC, but Amazon execs wanted it. Obviously the blowback was what it was, but perception was key.

With Nashville, it has a larger urban footprint befitting a city that was 5 times bigger than Raleigh a century ago. So even though Raleigh’s urbanized area is denser than Nashville’s, and Durham’s urbanized area is bigger and denser than Nashville’s equivalent of Murfreesboro, Raleigh indeed faces a problem on this front, some of it reality some of it perception.

The MSA split feeds the perception problem, and while recombining wouldn’t solve all issues, it would be a good first step if only because it would begin to offer a more realistic picture of what the Triangle is like. And to be clear, the MSA is still the most used shorthand by journalists and laypeople (including executives) to organize cities in this country.

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1066

i wasnt sure about this but wouldnt the ‘experts’ when siting a new venture just look at the number of qualified people within a given radius as optimal (along with other toots and whistles in a given area) and then and just overlook the msa/csa newspaper article stuff?

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1067

I think it’s important to understand that Raleigh comes to the table without a long standing national brand identity that’s been honed over decades if not a century or more. We also aren’t coming to the table with a commerce history in our back pockets that tells a story of how we got America to where it is today. We were relatively inconsequential. We come with a history where we were more comparable to Macon, GA than to any of the rising stars that are our competition.
We also come to the table with a mixed bag of successes and failures. Certainly we attracted a NHL team and won the Stanley Cup with them, but we also lost the AA hub service to Charlotte, and slept on performing arts and had it taken by Durham. We have grown tremendously, and just as we were picking up steam and gaining visibility the OMB cut our metro in half.
Because we are literally playing catch-up in brand identity vis-a-vis our peers, it’s beyond important for the city to purposely & highly manage its brand going forward if we want to take the city to the next level. Essentially, being good enough isn’t going to be good enough going forward. We have to put in the effort. To that end the city of Raleigh should be doing everything in its power to influence the reunification of the Triangle into a singular MSA because size does matter in the eyes of the public and the next generation of workers. It’s in the attraction of that talent that will drive our visibility as well. Remember, lists about where GenZ is moving is often based on MSAs as well, and you can bet your bottom dollar that HR and Biz Ops folks at major companies are looking at that data.
Raleigh has to overcome several barriers. Its MSA is small and its city limits are small. We don’t have hundreds of square miles of land to prop up our population rankings like Jacksonville, Oklahoma City or Nashville. We don’t start our brand journey from a position of strength based on a romanticized past history. We don’t have some sort of natural wonder in our city or even a riverfront to work with. We are going to have to work at it, and getting the two MSAs combined is a good first step in elevating our visibility.

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1068

They look at a number of factors I’m sure. But certainly perception is one of them. I once read a fascinating article on Austin and how it better business bureaued it’s way to the top of the charts. Boosterism is real, and can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.