Here are some of the replies to my question about the source for the population of urbanized areas. These areas are not the standard metropolitan statistical areas, but the areas in and contiguous to cities where the population is 1000 people per square mile or more. (i hope that it is people not households). Sometimes it includes areas which are contiguous but do not have that population density, but are urbanized in other ways, for example an industrial district. And sometimes there may be a nearby noncontiguous area with that population density which is included also. We have an area like that in our metropolitan area. I am speaking from the memory of a generalist planner, so folks should check the official census definition which is fairly easy to find at the census website. STF1 has that data element. You were at the right place "census.gov". __________________________________________________________________________ Please go to http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/metro-city/ma99-03b.txt . The file shown can be down loaded to your disk. ____________________________________________________________________________ __ Jay - We eventually were able to track our urbanized area data through the Amercian Fact Finder site. The steps are not immediately obvious. ____________________________________________________________________________ _______ Jay, try this site at Census. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet ____________________________________________________________________________ __ STF1 has that data element. You were at the right place "census.gov". ____________________________________________________________________________ _ Jay: The total population for the MSA is 688,399. The total population for the Grand Rapids Urbanized Area is 436,336. (I'm reading this from an old MTC publication based on the 8/16/91 Census Bureau press release on Urbanized Area rankings. If I can find the e-versions of these old "Data Releases" I'll slap'em up on some web site. ) Other data for all MSAs on my own web site at: http://home.earthlink.net/~clpurvis/metrodat/index.html http://home.earthlink.net/~clpurvis/metrodat/metroa1.htm Grand Rapids, MI MSA 688,399 ____________________________________________________________________________ _____