The Case Of The Missing Metros

Tweet

You're right: manufacturing is experiencing hot growth. But you're not quite right. It's happening in San Jose, not San Francisco. No offense to Frisco, but give credit where credit is due.

EDITOR-NOTE:

In addition, we heard from readers who objected to the fact that we did not include their particular metro areas in our ranking.

OK, so how do we define a "metropolitan area"? Well, we look at census figures and identify densely settled counties closely related by commuting patterns. If 15% or more of a suburban county's residents work in a nearby urban county, or vice versa, we generally group the two counties together. That's how San Jose winds up as part of the San Francisco metro area; San Bernadino/Riverside as part of Los Angeles; Nassau/Suffolk as part of New York City. Frankly, we're not all that comfortable with this system. For one thing, the census data on commuting patterns is at least five years old. For another, a case can be made that commuting patterns aren't particularly relevant to our ranking. So the letter-writers have a point, and we will take it into account when we sit down to do our 1989 Metro Report.