Apologies for the delay in responding to this thread of messages.  My colleagues and I have been busy with tasks related to the delineation of urban areas, including proofreading the final criteria notice that has now been sent to the Federal Register for publication.  I just received word that the final criteria for delineating urban areas should be published on Wednesday, August 24 (which, for those of you following closely, is exactly one year after publication of the proposed criteria notice).

 

Regarding splitting large agglomerations, the Census Bureau received 160 comments in response to our proposed criterion.  Of these, 102 expressed concern about the potential merging of individual Census 2000 UAs, including concern about impact on planning and policies that have been based on the existence of separate areas.  In response to the predominant response in opposition to merging urbanized areas (or stated differently, not splitting agglomerations), the Census Bureau will adopt criteria ensuring that urbanized areas defined for Census 2000 continue to identified as separate urbanized areas for the 2010 Census, but only if these areas continue to qualify as urbanized under the 2010 urban area delination criteria.  The boundary used to split large agglomerations will be based on the locations of Census 2000 urban area boundaries.  To the exten possible, this will facilitate continuity and comparability between the Census 2000 and the 2010 Census urban area definitions.

 

Mike Ratcliffe

 

______________________________________
Michael R. Ratcliffe
Assistant Division Chief, Geocartographic Products and Criteria
Geography Division
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road/ MS-7400
Washington, DC 20233-7400
301-763-8977
michael.r.ratcliffe@census.gov

To: "ctpp-news@chrispy.net" <ctpp-news@chrispy.net>
From: Tom Reinauer
Sent by: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net
Date: 08/18/2011 11:31AM
Subject: [CTPP] RE: If you are interested in CB Urban Areas delineation

Please note that there are some very strong concerns regarding some of the proposed “agglomerations”, and I hope that there is some flexibility in determining these creations – either based on the minimum threshold idea mentioned in the FR, or other/more appropriate criteria than simply contiguity over a vast area of urban regions.  Some of these go beyond simply reconnecting urban areas that were split during the 2000 UA process.

Lumping some of these areas together – for example, Worcester MA with Boston MA with Dover-Rochester NH and Portsmouth NH – frankly makes no sense  from a MPO or transportation planning perspective.  We are particularly concerned with the potential effects on FTA urbanized area funding in New England, as this is directly related to the definition, size, number and population of the urbanized areas – regardless of the process as to how these areas are ultimately defined.   –Tom

 

Tom Reinauer

Transportation Director

Southern Maine RPC and Kittery Area MPO

21 Bradeen Street, Suit 304

Springvale, ME 04083

(207)324-2952 ext. 18

www.smrpc.org

 

 

From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Frank Lenk
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 6:48 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] RE: If you are interested in CB Urban Areas delineation

 

We also have the same concern in Kansas City, where a Lee’s Summit urbanized area was created mainly because a general aviation airport separated it from the Kansas City urbanized area. The city of Lee’s Summit extends both north and south of this airport, so the northern part of the city is in one urbanized area while the southern part is in another.  The originally proposed 2010 urbanized area criteria indicated the two areas would be recombined, as they had been in 1990.  Most people here would agree that recombining the two provides a more accurate description of the areas pattern of urbanization.  

 

Frank Lenk

Director of Research Services

Mid-America Regional Council

Kansas City, MO

 

From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Mark Sattler
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 4:50 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] If you are interested in CB Urban Areas delineation

 

Our MPO policy committee took a position supporting the concept of the multiple urbanized areas within our region being agglomerated and were encouraged by the August 24, 2010 Federal Register notice indicating that the Census 2000 UAs (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Denton-Lewisville, and McKinney) would potentially be combined.  Therefore, we are disappointed and a bit confused by the August 4-5 listserv statements indicating that new criteria may have since been developed.  Our policy officials have seen these discussions and are asking us to respond.  Can you let us know what is going on with regard to these criteria and perhaps provide the rationale behind keeping the urbanized areas from 2000 (when the other criteria indicate that they should be combined)?  Thanks.

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