King of Kensington
Senior Member
The US Census Bureau uses counties as building blocks for its metropolitan areas. The core urban area is defined in central counties and outlying counties are added if 25% commute to the central counties. Something like 90% of the US metro area populations lives in the so-called "central counties."
So for Toronto the GTA would make up the central counties: Toronto, York, Peel, Halton and Durham. Dufferin County with 37.8% commuting to the GTA would also be included. This leads to a population of 6,111,092 in 2011, putting it fifth place in the US and Canada behind Dallas-Fort Worth and just ahead of Houston, Philadelphia and Washington. Maybe call it Toronto-Mississauga-Oshawa.
The latest commuting figures I could find were from 2006. Hamilton with 23.7% commuting to the GTA and Kawartha Lakes/Victoria County 24.5% I think would fall just short of inclusion, as would Simcoe County at 21.8% and Northumberland at 18.8% (Bradford incidentally has 71% commuting to the GTA, Innisfil and New Tecumseth at 40%, Barrie at 21.1%; in Northumberland Port Hope comes in at 30% but its neighbor Cobourg just 15%).
A county where 15% commute to any county (not just the central counties) gets added to the so-called Combined Statistical Area. That would bring in Hamilton and Barrie-Orillia (Simcoe and the Cobourg-Port Hope (Northumberland) and Lindsay (Kawartha Lakes) micropolitan area, a population of 7,232,444, seventh in North America behind the Bay Area and Boston-Providence.
Guelph/Wellington County falls just short of inclusion at 14.4% (but maybe it's risen 0.6% since?). Adding that population in would bring the Toronto-Hamilton-? CSA to 7,440,844.
St. Catharines/Niagara isn't connected enough to the GTA in terms of commuting patterns and I don't think would merit inclusion if Hamilton was added as a "core county" (for instance while 55% of Grimsby residents commute to Hamilton and to a lesser extent the GTA, by St. Catharines it's only 7%).
The CMA concept uses municipalities as building blocks but the criteria isn't all that clear - apparently once a CMA is created it can never be abolished. Oshawa for instance doesn't really justify its own CMA when twice as many Whitby commuters go to Toronto than Oshawa, and also Burlington sends more to Toronto than Hamilton.
So for Toronto the GTA would make up the central counties: Toronto, York, Peel, Halton and Durham. Dufferin County with 37.8% commuting to the GTA would also be included. This leads to a population of 6,111,092 in 2011, putting it fifth place in the US and Canada behind Dallas-Fort Worth and just ahead of Houston, Philadelphia and Washington. Maybe call it Toronto-Mississauga-Oshawa.
The latest commuting figures I could find were from 2006. Hamilton with 23.7% commuting to the GTA and Kawartha Lakes/Victoria County 24.5% I think would fall just short of inclusion, as would Simcoe County at 21.8% and Northumberland at 18.8% (Bradford incidentally has 71% commuting to the GTA, Innisfil and New Tecumseth at 40%, Barrie at 21.1%; in Northumberland Port Hope comes in at 30% but its neighbor Cobourg just 15%).
A county where 15% commute to any county (not just the central counties) gets added to the so-called Combined Statistical Area. That would bring in Hamilton and Barrie-Orillia (Simcoe and the Cobourg-Port Hope (Northumberland) and Lindsay (Kawartha Lakes) micropolitan area, a population of 7,232,444, seventh in North America behind the Bay Area and Boston-Providence.
Guelph/Wellington County falls just short of inclusion at 14.4% (but maybe it's risen 0.6% since?). Adding that population in would bring the Toronto-Hamilton-? CSA to 7,440,844.
St. Catharines/Niagara isn't connected enough to the GTA in terms of commuting patterns and I don't think would merit inclusion if Hamilton was added as a "core county" (for instance while 55% of Grimsby residents commute to Hamilton and to a lesser extent the GTA, by St. Catharines it's only 7%).
The CMA concept uses municipalities as building blocks but the criteria isn't all that clear - apparently once a CMA is created it can never be abolished. Oshawa for instance doesn't really justify its own CMA when twice as many Whitby commuters go to Toronto than Oshawa, and also Burlington sends more to Toronto than Hamilton.
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