Generally, I think it refers to >100k in a given county / parish. (And then contiguous counties with that many get lumped into a single MSA.) I'll have to defer to the experts at the US Census Bureau to define the term precisely, but the metro area is usually substantially larger than just the city proper. Of the ones you cite --
Hattiesburg MSA ~ 140k
Jonesboro MSA ~ 120k
Monroe MSA ~ 175k
Bowling Green MSA ~ 125k
Huntington MSA ~ 285k
These areas may be widely perceived as small towns. But in reality, they're bigger than they let on.
But, being only 30 miles from Monroe, doesn't Ruston qualify as being in the Monroe "metro" area? I would think so. For comparison purposes, I did a quick look, and Denton, TX is located 38 miles from Dallas, and 34 miles from Ft Worth. Yet, Denton is obviously --and correctly IMO-- considered part of the DFW metro area.
Distance from the central city is less important than what fills that distance.
If it's 30 miles of continuous cul-de-sac subdivisions, Toyota dealerships, SuperTargets, and ChikFilAs, then it's all going to be construed as one metro area. But if it's 30 miles of pine trees and cows, then the metro area will usually end at the county line. The DFW metro covers 11 counties. The Monroe MSA includes two parishes. Not every acre of those areas are what you might call "metropolitan". But the county line is a useful convention for defining a MSA, because it's a line that already exists on every map.
As you know, I've maintained that attendance is only a partial gauge of a community's support for its local college sports program(s). You also have to look at attendance as a function of the surrounding population. MSA is a useful (albeit imperfect, partly for reasons you cite) measure to make this case.
It also shows how programs like UNT, SMU, etc, pale in comparison to schools like Tech, Appy, or Troy in terms of true community participation. That Tech can draw a crowd roughly the same size as UNT, despite having roughly ONE PERCENT of the surrounding population from which to draw that crowd goes to show just how few $hits DFW gives for UNT. (And if Tulane had the same level of community support as Tech, they'd have packed the Superdome every week for 40 years.)
I mentioned it here because Boone came up earlier in the thread, and I've believed for awhile that -- as a G5 located outside of US Census designated metro area -- they are a true peer institution, insofar as athletics are concerned.
Last edited by Champ967; 12-03-2019 at 02:27 PM.
Some perspective. For Wyoming, a state with <600k people, Laramie is a metro area being the 3rd largest city in the state with roughly 32k people. Might be more comparable if Tech were located in say Shreveport. Last I saw, UW was averaging 25k per game in attendance, their highest season average ever.
Close
Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) are defined by commuting flows between counties. The Monroe MSA is comprised of Ouachita Parish and Union. MSAs exceed 50,000 population.
Monroe MSA (Ouachita and Union) – 180,000
Hattiesburg MSA (Forrest, Lamar and Perry) – 149,000
*Why is Union Parish part of the Monroe MSA and not Lincoln Parish? Because Lincoln Parish is a job center itself and sends a lower percentage of its residents to work in Ouachita Parish, therefore is less dependent on Ouachita Parish.
Lincoln Parish and Morehouse Parishes are both individual Micropolitan Statistical Area (µSA) <50K population.
Ruston µSA – 48,000
Lincoln and Morehouse Parishes combine with the Monroe MSA to form the Monroe – Ruston – Bastrop Combined Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA). CMSA’s are formed by adjacent MSA and µSA that have some economic ties but lower than the MSA standards.
Monroe – Ruston – Bastrop CMSA – 250,000
Hattiesburg – Laurel CMSA – 253,000
*Washington DC and Baltimore are separate MSA, but combine to form a single CMSA
The Census also defines Urbanized Areas. They represent an area of continuous development. They follow blocks so they can have odd shapes and are much smaller in size than MSA’s, but contain a majority of the population. They do not follow city or county boundaries.
Monroe Urbanized Area – 117,000
Hattiesburg Urbanized Area – 80,000