The Duluth Metropolitan Statistical Area (Census)

The Duluth Metropolitan Statistical Area (Census)

Greetings!

I cannot remember if I mentioned this to you before, but a recent reference question I worked on reminded me of the issue.

A number of you, or your students, may be doing research (marketing, economic, other) using census information (population, economic, other) where you are looking at a metro area analysis. I want to remind you that metro areas can change over time, and this could result, in some instances, where you might be comparing "apples and oranges" over
different time periods.

Of particular interest to those of you doing local research, is the Duluth Metropolitan Area. The Duluth Metro area historically has included all of St. Louis County, MN and all of Douglas County, WI. This includes information reported in the 2000 Census. However, somewhere around 2002 or so, the Census Bureau also included Carlton County, MN into the Duluth Metro area.

This may be a logical thing to do for the purpose of making
a demographic or economic analysis of a connected economic region. However, it is important, to remember the Metro definitions over time in order to state your numbers and comparisons correctly.

By studying the Metro Area definitions found on these two pages, you can see how a Metro Area was defined at a given year:

http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/metrodef.html
and
http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/pastmetro.html

Please let me know if this was useful to you.

Thanks!!!