n the United States, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a convenient and damning fiction. Here's a passage from the Census Bureau defining an MSA:
Under the standards, the county (or counties) in which at least 50 percent of the population resides within urban areas of 10,000 or more population, or that contain at least 5,000 people residing within a single urban area of 10,000 or more population, is identified as a "central county" (counties). Additional "outlying counties" are included in the CBSA if they meet specified requirements of commuting to or from the central counties. Counties or equivalent entities form the geographic "building blocks" for metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
The core county (or counties) of an MSA is a function of population. But for other counties in the orbit, commuting patterns delineate. Many residents are connected to core county employment.
Within the MSA, residents have variable connections to core county employment. Some metro residents are part of the metro economy and some metro residents are not part of the metro economy. Boston:
And without a car, it’s almost impossible for someone in Mattapan looking for work to get to a place like Acton, he said. There is no bus service in Acton, a town of 22,000, and the commuter rail is miles from commercial shopping and can cost more than $10 each way.
Within the Boston MSA there is no commuting from Mattapan to Acton. But Acton needs cheap Mattapan labor. The two places are not functioning as one labor market within the same MSA. Thus, the two places are not functioning as one real estate market within the same MSA.
[For more of this story, written by Jim Russell, go to http://www.psmag.com/business-...rea-promotes-poverty]
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