Knoxville Metropolitan Area Welcomes New Counties
On February 28, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that the boundaries of Knoxville's Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) had been changed to include several new counties. Since then, MPC staff members have been hard at work generating summary data from the 2010 Census that reflects the new MSA.
In addition to Knox, Anderson, Blount, Loudon, and Union?the counties in the Knoxville MSA since 1990?the area now includes Campbell, Grainger, Morgan, and Roane counties. That's an 89 percent increase in area and nearly a 20 percent increase in population. (See map of new MSA.)
OMB decisions on statistical area boundaries are based on the economic and social interconnectivity of the counties. When a significant percentage of residents leave their home county to work or play, the economies of those counties become interdependent. And that's definitely the case with the Knoxville MSA. Nearly 20 percent of us live in one county and work in another. (See map of commuter flows.)
Because MPC is an affiliate of the Census Bureau's State Data Center program, its website contains a generous amount of datafrom the bureau, some of it dating back to the 1980 Census and presented in a variety of forms: spreadsheets, formatted PDF tables, and maps.
Local Chambers of Commerce, developers, and businesses looking to invest in the area are among the many users of the information presented on the site.
"When businesses are looking at our area for investment opportunities, they don't see county boundaries," said MPC Research and Information Manager, Terry Gilhula. "Because it's quite common to live in one county and work in another, they need to know the demographics, educational attainment, employment levels, traffic counts, income levels, and more for the entire region to decide whether locating their business here makes sense. And with the strong economic ties between the nine counties in the metropolitan area, large investment in one has a ripple effect of positive economic benefit to all."
Posted 04-03-2013. Written by Sarah Powell. Maps by Bryan Berry.
