144 cities, including 2 in Utah, could lose status as metro areas
Utah.com
By: Associated Press , FOX 13 News
Posted at 10:43 PM, Mar 09, 2021
and last updated 2021-03-10 00:43:04-05
The federal government is proposing to downgrade 144 cities from the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) designation, and it could be more than just a matter of semantics. Officials in some of the affected cities worry that the change could have adverse implications for federal funding and economic development.
Under the new proposal, a metro area would have to have at least 100,000 people in its core city to count as an MSA, double the 50,000-person threshold that has been in place for the past 70 years. Cities formerly designated as metros with core populations between 50,000 and 100,000 people, like Bismarck, North Dakota, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin, would be changed to âmicropolitanâ statistical areas instead.