ABSTRACT
In 2003, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) overhauled the widely-recognized metropolitan classification system that the US Census Bureau uses to collect data in the decennial Census. In 2010, this new metropolitan system will reshape the way that data are collected and research is conducted. The new system creates Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) that contain a significant population nucleus (the region’s core) together with adjacent communities having a high degree of social and economic integration with that core. CBSAs are defined as metropolitan or micropolitan depending on the core’s size. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) contain at least one urbanized area with at least 50,000 people. Micropolitan Statistical Areas (mSAs) contain at least one urban cluster with between 10,000 and 50,000 people. Principal cities are the largest cities in a CBSA. These changes to the way that the Census orders urban data represent a dramatic departure from the previous classification system of metropolitan areas based on consolidated and primary areas and on counties (Frey et al. 2004).
