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EMGERING REGULATORY ISSUES:
OMB Seeks Comment on Standards for Defining Metropolitan Areas
OMB recently issued a Federal Register notice seeking public comment on the final report and recommendations of the Metropolitan Area Standards Review Committee concerning changes to the standards for defining metropolitan areas (65 Fed. Reg. 51060, August 22, 2000). This is the latest in a series of comment opportunities by OMB on this issue.
In the fall of 1998, OMB chartered the Metropolitan Area Standards Review Committee to review the 1990 standards to ensure their continued relevance and usefulness. The agencies represented in the Committee include:
| Bureau of the Census (Chair) |
Bureau of Labor Statistics |
| Bureau of Economic Analysis |
Bureau of Transportation |
| Economic Research Service (USDA) |
National Center for Health Statistics |
| OMB (Ex officio)
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The general concept of a metropolitan area is a locale containing a large population nucleus and adjoining communities with a high degree of integration with that nucleus. The purpose of the standards is to provide nationally consistent definitions for collecting, tabulating, and publishing federal statistics for a set of geographic areas. The metropolitan area program has been providing these standard statistical area definitions for 50 years, and this round of revision is the fifth such review.
OMB points out that these definitions are for statistical purposes only, not for any other public or private sector uses including program funding. The notice also makes clear that the new definitions will not be used as part of Census 2000. However, they may be used in future censuses and other important statistical activities of the federal government.
Addressed below are:
Key Concerns of the Committee
Areas of Committee Recommendation
Submitting Comments to OMB
Key Concerns of the Committee
Key concerns of the Committee included (as quoted from the Federal Register):
- To modify the standards further to stay abreast of changes in population distribution and activity patterns;
- To use advances in computer applications to consider new approaches to defining areas;
- To capture a more complete range of U.S. settlement and activity patterns than the 1990 standards;
- Whether the Federal Government should define metropolitan and nonmetropolitan statistical areas;
- What geographic units – "building blocks" – should be used in defining the statistical areas;
- Whether the statistical areas should account for all territory in the Nation;
- Whether there should be hierarchies or multiple sets of statistical areas in the classification;
- What kinds of entities should receive official recognition in the classification;
- Whether the classification should reflect statistical rules only or allow a role for local opinion; and
- How frequently statistical areas should be updated.
Areas of Committee Recommendation
In issuing standards, the Committee offered recommendations in the following areas. (Please view the Federal Register notice above for the complete text of the Committee's recommendations and standards.)
- Recommendations Concerning Categories and Terminology for a Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) Classification to be Titled "Standards for Defining Metropolitan and Micropolitan Areas."
- Recommendations Concerning the Geographic Unit to be Used as the Building Block for Defining CBSAs.
- Recommendations Concerning Cores of CBSAs and Central Counties.
- Recommendations Concerning Criteria for Inclusion of Outlying Counties.
- Recommendation Concerning Merging Adjacent CBSAs.
- Recommendations Concerning Identification of Principal Cities.
- Recommendation Concerning Identification of Components within Metropolitan Areas and NECTAs that Contain at least One Core of 2.5 Million or More Population.
- Recommendations Concerning Combining Adjacent CBSAs.
- Recommendations Concerning Titles of CBSAs, Metropolitan Divisions, NECTA Divisions, and Combined Are
- Recommendation Concerning Use of Statistical Rules and the Role of Local Opinion.
- Recommendation Concerning Settlement Structure within the Core Based Statistical Area Classification.
- Recommendations Concerning "Grandfathering" of Current Metropolitan Areas.
- Recommendations Concerning the Schedule for Updating CBSAs.
Submitting Comments to OMB
Comments on the Committee's final recommendations for standards for defining metropolitan areas are due to OMB by October 6, 2000. Comments should be submitted to:
Katherine K. Wallman
Chief Statistician
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
New Executive Office Building, Room 10201
725 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20503
FAX (202) 395-7245.
For additional information on the Committee's recommended standards, contact:
James D. Fitzsimmons
Chair
Metropolitan Area Standards Review Committee
(301) 457-2419
E-mail: pop.frquestions@ccmail.census.gov.
Please note that while OMB has requested public comments on any and all aspects of the proposed standards, areas of particular interest to OMB are areas of change from the last round of commenting, including:
- Number of categories of CBSAs and the terms by which they would be identified (see Section A.1);
- Categorization of CBSAs on the basis of population in cores (see Section A.1);
- Identification of New England City and Town Areas (NECTAs) to indicate that NECTAs are conceptually similar to CBSAs (see Section A.2);
- Criteria for qualifying a central county (see Section A.3.);
- Identification of metropolitan division within CBSAs with a core of 2.5 Million or more population and NECTA divisions within NECTAs that have a core of that size (see Section A.7);
- Criteria for titling Combines Areas, which would now require that the second- and third-largest CBSAs in a Combined Area each have at least one-third the population of the largest area for their single largest principal cities to appear in the title (see Section A.9).
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