A Look At Cities

The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) consists of “a large population nucleus, together with adjacent communities having a high degree of social and economic integration with that core.” (U.S. Census Bureau) Basically, New York City includes Long Island and most of New Jersey and other communities around it, but not Philadelphia. Philadelphia is its own MSA, and contains Camdon, Wilmington, etc.

The MSA population is a much better representation of the true size of a city compared to the official population. For example, the official population of St. Louis is about 350,000 persons, but when you take into account the surrounding communities that work and play in the city that number balloons to about 2.8 million. Quite a difference. Anyways, below is a list of the top 70 MSAs ranked by population.

The Common Name field is just something I made up, the Metropolitan Statistical Areas field is the label given by the Census Burea, the July 1, 2006 field is the latest population, the Census 2000 Estimate is the population estimated in year 2000, the % Growth field is the growth percentage from year 2000 to July 1, 2006, so basically a six-year growth percentage, and the last field, Estimated 2030 Population, is the estimated population in year 2030 based on the six-year growth percentage.