Micropolitan Areas and the U.S. Metropolitan Hierarchy, 1950-2010

Todd K. Gardner, U.S. Census Bureau

The category of “Micropolitan Statistical Areas” was introduced with the 2000 census. Metropolitan and micropolitan areas are defined as groups of counties with strong commuting ties to urban cores, but metro urban core populations (50,000 or more) are larger than those of micropolitan areas (at least 10,000 but less than 50,000). This research uses historical geographic and commuting data to create comparable geographic units covering the period from 1950 to 2010. Micropolitan areas would have been a useful geographic unit in 1950 because they accounted for more than double the share of population they did by the end of the century. This research looks at the metropolitan hierarchy of the United States since 1950, focusing on demographic changes in metropolitan and micropolitan areas, such as household structure, age structure and the racial/ethnic makeup of the population. Having identified a significant population, this paper goes on to discuss how voting behavior has changed in micropolitan areas through this period. Keywords: metropolitan, micropolitan, methods, voting

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 218. Mobilizing Census Data: Key Infrastructure Developments