Defining the boundaries that separate metropolitan areas has major implications for research, governance, and economic development. For instance, such boundaries can influence allocation of infrastructure funding or housing subsidies. However, traditional methods to define metropolitan regions often hamper meaningful understanding of communities' characteristics and needs.
Drawing on methodologies from network science, He and colleagues have now developed a new method of defining metropolitan areas according to census commuter data. They organized all 3,091 counties in the contiguous United States into an interconnected network, with the number of commuters who cross county lines determining the strength of connections between counties. Notably, unlike other studies that have used commuter data to define metropolitan regions, they also accounted for within-county commuting.
Portland, Oregon has created a regional planning authority, Metro, similar to this approach.
Journal Reference:
Mark He, et al. Demarcating geographic regions using community detection in commuting networks with significant self-loops, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230941
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @03:07AM (1 child)
Commuter data
Is this what they're calling the spy data from our phones?
Is it too much to ask that researches be honest about their collusion with proto Gestapos?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:12PM
Could also be those insurance company dongles that plug into the OBD-II diagnostic port under the steering wheel.
I pulled up behind a car at a light with this bumper sticker, "Speed monitored by GPS". Wrong car to get behind, it was strictly following the limit on a major road where traffic goes 5-10 mph above the limit.