Professor Elam

Weekend January  15, 2017

The Way We Are

The United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has defined 382 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) for the United States and seven for Puerto Rico.^[1] The OMB defines a Metropolitan Statistical Area as one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban core area of at least 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.

I made numerous speaking engagements in Midland Odessa from 1995-1999. One of the themes of those presentations was that, statistically speaking, Midland Odessa, regrettably, did not count for a lot of population in the great scheme of things. That explained why in a state wide election, Houston got the candidate, the Permian Basin would be lucky to get, say, the nephew.

Twenty years ago, once one reached El Paso on the list, that encompassed about 65% of the population of Texas. As of 2012, four, near five years ago, it was 68%. No doubt it is now 70%.

Okay I knew you would ask so here is the Permian Basin.

The conclusion and take away here is that the large SMSAs continue to attract a higher percent of the population. The cyclical nature of the oil-based economy (boom and bust) has pretty well kept the population from really growing in the Basin.

An article about Bexar County, San Antonio, caught my eye and prompted this column. I spent 1966-1972 as a college student and finally accounting employee in Austin, Tx. Back then it was still a sleepy, but attractive town. It had the State Capitol and UT Austin, dependable but low wage employers.   All of us wanted to live there but few well-paying jobs were hard to come by. The high tech economy that Austin had today was still a couple of decades away.

But nostalgia dies hard. Far too many still think of Austin as a desirable destination city. As one who lived there again in 2001-2002, I assure it is not. Austin is the largest city in Texas without an inner city loop. Translated that means traffic worse than Houston, and that is saying something, With the State, City, County, and University of Texas real estate property tax exempt, the cost of real estate for the rest of the population is high. The City owns the electric company and prices that service accordingly.

So I was not surprised to see a story about a hair-dresser who was thankful she had moved from Austin to San Antonio.

With two loops, 1604 and 410, yes there is traffic. And Friday afternoon is to be avoided on the street at all costs. But it beats Austin any day for affordability and ease of movement.   And San Antonio has a lively arts community with the revamped Tobin Center, the Majestic Theater, and a slew of independent production companies.

The bottom line is this. Texas has more MSAs than any other state. Previous to the new designation of 50,000, an MSA was 100,000. Neither Odessa nor Midland reached this level in the 1980s. Finally the Permian Basin convinced the OMB to count the two cities as one MSA. And overnight, Midland sprouted all sorts of national chains who had not been here before.

Most Texans live in the eastern part of the state, I-35 is literally demography, it is where the west begins. And 80% of us live in a mere 48 of our 254 State Counties.

And the truly good news is, you and I do not live in DFW or Houston…