Believe it or not, the federal government just did something extremely useful for business executives and corporate site selectors, and most people didn’t even notice.
In early June, the Office of Management and Budget came out with a new list of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), increasing the number of communities in that category by 49, to a total of 370. Metropolitan Statistical Areas are, in general, urban areas with a population of at least 50,000.
In addition, OMB designated 565 smaller communities as Micropolitan Statistical Areas, an entirely new designation. Micro Areas are communities with populations of at least 10,000, but less than 50,000.
So, why is this good news?
Because it makes it that much easier to gather meaningful — and comparable — information on labor markets and business communities. Prior to the 2000 Census, MSAs (as in Metro) were the basic building block around which the government built its urban statistical data. Demographic data from the Census Bureau (e.g., age, sex, education, etc.), Crime statistics from the FBI, and transportation statistics from the BTS or FHA or FAA were also geared toward the MSA level.
It made sense. We all live in metros, or at least 80 percent of us do, and state-level data, while interesting, is rarely useful (with the exception of tax rates) to a business location decision. Additionally, Metro areas also fairly accurately describe the labor market for a particular locale.
In order to make intelligent decisions, we need to know as much as possible about the Metro areas we are considering, and adding 49 new Metro areas increases the percentage of the country we are able to quantify and analyze.
Unfortunately, that still left us with 20 percent of the country about which it was difficult to gather (and compare) meaningful statistical data. That’s what’s so important about the new Micopolitan designation. By so designating these smaller communities, we will now be able to access comparable community statistical data on 90 percent of the U.S. population.
No longer will we have to take the small town economic developer’s word for the size and education level of his labor market. Ditto for any other bits of demographic data we need. From now on, the rest of the federal government (commerce, transportation, justice, HHS, education, etc.) will begin providing data on these new community groupings.
For America’s small cities and towns, this is incredibly good news because, in addition to providing them with added visibility (like in that old Steve Martin movie when he finally got his name in the telephone book), it will allow them to compare themselves against other communities using comparable data from a source that has credibility.
That, in turn, will make for better business decisions and that’s good news for everybody.
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