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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

From today's IBJ daily update...

Indianapolis booming, by Rust Belt standards

Indianapolis is growing faster than Chicago, Grand Rapids or any of the other 10 largest metro areas in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, according to an analysis by Bill Testa, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The Indianapolis-area population swelled 27 percent from 1990 to 2005, Testa pointed out in a recent blog entry. The region added 346,000 people in the period.

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Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 248
Location: Lexington ky

wow thats so awsome and not many people know indy is the 12th largest city and cities like columbus OH and jacksonville are just behind and cities like atlanta are actually small looking at city size

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

True. Since the city is merged with Marion county, it makes it large both geographically and population-wise. Something around 850,000 folks in the city. But that can be a little bit misleading for judging relative market sizes for business and economics purposes. That's why people usually focus on the Metropolitan Statistical Area numbers. While Indy is the 12th largest city in the country, the Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN MSA is 28th largest, with about 1.96 million people in 2005. We're just ahead of Columbus, OH and just behind Orlando. The biggest MSAs are New York (21.9 million), LA (17.7), Chicago (9.7), DC (8.1), and the bay area (7.2). The smallest areas that meet the criteria for being classified as an MSA are Ketchikan and Kodiak, Alaska, Andrews, TX, Tallulah, LA, and Pecos, TX, all of which have fewer than 15,000 people.

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Joined: 15 May 2006
Posts: 728
Location: West Lafayette, IN

How big is a MSA? I always see metro Indy as Marion and the counties around it.

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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

All the markets are misleading. Some of them include huge amounts of real estate. How large would the Indianapolis market be if we included the same number of square miles that Atlanta gets?

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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

The census bureau has a fairly complex set of criteria that define an MSA. Bascially, it has to do with an economic grouping as evidenced by commuting patterns and sociocultural ties. In Indy, we are used to thinking of the metro area as the 9-county area centered on Marion county. While it's easy to see how those counties are all tied fairly closely to the city of Indianapolis for their economic well being, that's not the official boundaries of the Indianapolis MSA. Those boundaries include Columbus and Anderson - but not Muncie and Bloomington. It's perhaps a little tougher to see the distinction between including some cities and not others in the MSA. But again, it has to do with commuting patterns and things like media markets and other economic ties. I would argue that Anderson might be included, but Columbus is probably a stretch. My argument doesn't matter, though.

Other demographers use different definitions to more narrowly or more broadly define metro areas. For instance, so demographers use a very broad definition based largely on contiguous regions of population density. By these broad definitions, the area between Boston and the southern suburbs of Washington DC is one metro area - usually referred to as the BosWash Megalopolis. Likewise, the area from Sheboygan, WI all the way around through Chicago to include St. Joseph, MI, is considered one area, as is all of Southern California from Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, through LA and Palm Springs, San Diego to the Mexican border.

Others define things more narrowly based on "urbanization." This is a failry common way of defining a metro area, but it tends to skew in favor of coastal and mountain regions that are geographically limited from spreading out. This definition has to do with contiguous population density as well, but at a much higher level. It would basically define Indianapolis as just a little larger than the pre-Unigov city boundaries. It would negate all the growth in the Marion County townships and in the surrounding "doughnut" counties, largely because the population density is not high enough radiating that far out from the core of the city. But since we have virtually unlimited room to sprawl here in the midwest, this kind of definition shortchanges the economic dependencies that hold this region together. In other words, you can't argue that Carmel and Greenwood and Avon and Fishers and Plainfield would be what they are today if Indianapolis wansn't there to tie the region together. So by excluding them from the urbanized area, you're hiding the economic role these suburban towns play.

Atlanta is a great example of this. By all accounts, it's a substantial metropolitan area with a high growth rate. By the official census, the MSA consists of 28 counties (keep in mind that the counties in Georgia are a lot smaller than those in Indiana), with a population around 5 million. But if you've been to Atlanta, you know how much of that is sprawl. Outside of downtown and Buckhead, most of the area is fairly low-density, characterized by single-family homes, low-rise office buildings, and retail. The actual political boundaries of the city of Atlanta are rather small, and only about 10% of the MSA population actually resides within the city limits. By an urbanization area definition, it's even smaller than that.

One interesting note about all this. Within Marion county, particularly in the southeastern corner of the county, there is still a fair amount of farmland (say, south of Brookville Rd and east of Post and Franklin). These areas are very untouched by development, yet they're inside the city limits. There are a lot of federal programs that allocate money based on various formulas. A couple years ago, some noise was made by some group about Indianapolis getting money from the feds that was meant to be used in urban areas. Since much of the city is consiered non-urbanized (like the southeastern part I mentioned, plus some southwestern areas near Camby and a patch north of Eagle Creek Reservoir at Traders' Point), there were calls to reduce the money given to Indy. The politicians, of course, circled the wagons and preserved the funds for the city. Ironically, it is partly these kinds of programs that award funds based on the size and population of a city that have driven other areas to consolidate cities and counties. Louisville and Jefferson County, KY were the most recent ones to do so that I can recall - a couple years ago, I think. I believe that Nashville and Richmond, VA also have either consolidated with their counties or are thinking of doing so.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I believe the MSA is Marion county and the donut counties. Anderson and Columbus are part of the CSA if I remember correctly.

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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

I checked; you're partly right. Madison County, including Anderson, is part of the MSA. Batholomew County and Columbus are part of the CSA. Still doesn't make sense to me why Columbus would be in the CSA and not Bloomington, though.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I am going to dig up a map and figure what population IND really serves. Basically where it is the closest major airport to a county. In this case it would be CMH, CVG, ORD, DTW.

Member

Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 248
Location: Lexington ky

what about stl day and sdf

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

And MDW.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

For some reason I never really figured SDF as a major