Talk:Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area
This article deals with the statistical aspects of the U.S. Census Bureau Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area.
It is not intended to deal with the subjective aspects of the Denver Metropolitan Area discussed in Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area.
Buaidh 05:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- I don't understand the distinction you're making. All of the content here, except for the population table, is included in Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area. Is there some specific reason this should be an independent article rather than a redirect? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- In addition, to make it completely unambiguously defined Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area is explicity about the MSA. These two articles are about the same topic. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Rick.
Like most metropolitan areas in the United States, the extent of the Denver Metropolitan Area is largely contextual and the subject of lively debate.
Most Colorado counties are extensive. The three suburban counties adjacent to the City and County of Denver are long and narrow, with high population densities at the end of county near Denver and very low population densities at the opposite end:
- Arapahoe County is 72 miles long and 4 to 12 miles wide.
- Jefferson County is 54 miles long and 4 to 18 miles wide. (The southwest corner of the county is a wilderness area.)
- Adams County is 72 miles long and 6 to 18 miles wide.
There are several overlapping, officially designated Denver metropolitan regions:
- Denver Metropolitan Core Counties – 4 counties with 2,013,234 population.
- Denver Regional Council of Governments – 9 counties with 2,600,697 population.
- Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area – 10 counties with 2,359,994 population.
- Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area – 12 counties with 2,869,377 population.
- Front Range Urban Corridor – 17 counties with 3,965,289 population.
There are many additional unofficial and quasi-official definitions of the Denver Metropolitan Area.
The Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area article started life as a Denver Metropolitan Area article. While the label Denver Metropolitan Area is almost universally used in the metro area, the name of the article was changed to Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area to coincide with the United States Census Bureau designated Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Unfortunately, the Census Bureau also designated a Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area. The definition of the Denver Region used by the Denver Regional Council of Governments is the most common used locally.
I recommend that the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area article be retained (and possibly renamed to the more popular Denver Metropolitan Area) for general information about Metropolitan Denver. The portions of the article that deal with a specific regional entity such as the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area or the Denver Regional Council of Governments should be moved to those articles.
- Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area started life as Denver Metropolitan Area. It was moved to its current name and is now explicitly about the MSA precisely because the term "Denver Metropolitan Area" is informal, which makes it hard to be encyclopedic. Keeping it explicitly about the MSA resolves any number of issues (what is the scope of the article? how do you define the population? etc. etc.). DrCOG is an organization, not an area, so is a completely different topic. IMO, having two articles about the metro area is unnecessary and confusing. I'll solicit more input on this at talk:Denver. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Rick. This page really is a repeat of Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area. Since you already have pages about some other front range statistical areas, I think we can have Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area as that page among the other statistical areas. There really is not a huge distinction between the pages and I think they should be merged. Vertigo700 19:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)