Slide 18 of 29
Notes:
The Census Bureau is currently reviewing its criteria for urban/rural delineations and will be announcing the official decision in the 2nd quarter of 2002.
An urbanized area (UA) is a densely settled area that has a census population of at least 50,000. At least 35,000 people in an urbanized area must live in territory that is not part of one or more military reservations, or it is classified as an urban cluster. A UA generally consists of a geographic core of block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile, and adjacent block groups and blocks with at least 500 people per square mile. A UA may consist of all or part of one or more incorporated places and/or census designated places, and may include area adjacent to the place(s).
UAs and MAs are not synonymous. Urbanized areas are based on blocks and block groups. Metropolitan areas include complete counties.
For Census 2000, UA delineations constitute a zero-based approach that requires no grandfathering of UA boundaries from the 1990 census. In a nutshell the new delineations have more stringent density requirements and less restrictive extended place criteria.
