We have converted our 2000 urbanized area boundaries and examined them in ArcView. It appears that our urbanized area has shrunk in many areas compared with the 1990 Census urbanized area. There are declines particularly around less occupied areas (we have a lot of marshes here in Charleston) adjacent to and surrounded by urban areas. Some changes are harder to explain, particularly in rapidly developing parts of our region that moved from being "urban" to "rural" by Census definition. This came as somewhat of a surprise to us. We had calculated our boundaries based on the draft regs published last year, and the final ones look dramatically different for our region. Could anyone give a basic explanation of the change in philosophy between designating the 1990 and 2000 boundaries? As the region's MPO, we need a good explanation (suitable for the layperson) to tell our local folks, particularly in areas that have much more growth than they did 10 years ago but are now called "rural." Thanks. Haila R. Maze, AICP Senior Planner Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Council of Governments 5290 Rivers Avenue, Suite 400 North Charleston, SC 29406 (843) 529-0400 (843) 529-0305 fax -----Original Message----- From: Robert LaMacchia [mailto:robert.a.lamacchia@census.gov] Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 2:05 PM To: Ctpp-News Maillist Subject: [CTPP] UA TIGER/Line files now available The UA Census 2000 TIGER/Line files are now available at: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tigerua/ua_tgr2k.html <http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tigerua/ua_tgr2k.html> Bob LaMacchia Geography Division U. S. Census Bureau