A Tale of Quad Cities or The Great Black Hole of Ada
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I have done my fair share of wiki articles and somehow I came on the Metro stats for Idaho Falls. Idaho Falls is 330 on the list with a 116,980 population. The United States Census Bureau defines an MSA as one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban cluster of at least 50,000 plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.
Yet when I drive around I.F. it seems like there is more then that many people driving around. So I added up the falling. Bingham County 43,739, Bonneville County 91,856, Jefferson County 21,580, Madison County 30,975. Total county 188,150
But as many of you know people come from other places to shop in I.F. and some even drive to work back forth. If you add in these counties you get! Clark County 943, Butte County 2,899, Teton County 7,467, Teton County, Wyoming 18,251, Fremont County 12,242 total county 41,802.
Then if you add in Pocatello you get.418 on the list Pocatello 86,357.
This means that south eastern Idaho has a population of 316,309.
According to an official United States Census estimate, as of 2006 the population of the Boise Metropolitan Area is 567,640. The metro area is currently the third largest in the Pacific Northwest (after Seattle and Portland), and the 87th largest in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boise_City-Nampa%2C_ID_MSA
So we around half as big as the black hole of Ada yet I would bet that Ada gets by far much more then half as much tax money back! . It is going to take all the cities in the metro to band together to get more of our bucks back from Boise. So it’s time for us to start thinking that we live in a metro not in a small town!
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Comments
Vote:
0 
0 I can give you some updates on population statistics. These are from either the U.S. Census or record keeping sites such as Emporis.com.
I’ll make a list for you, all of the figures are 2007 estimates.
Idaho Falls: 56,338
Bonneville County: 102,980
Idaho Falls MSA: 120,000 estimated but probably low.
Idaho Falls Bingham CSA*: 161,031
Idaho Falls Retail Trade: 300,000+
This number includes all of East Idaho, parts of Western Wyoming and parts of Southern Montana.
*The Idaho Falls Bingham Combined Statistical Area is the counties of Bonneville, Jefferson, and Bingham. Although Bingham is not yet part of the metro area it should be included by the 2010 census.
I actually believe that Madison County will be included into the MSA by the 2010 census as well allowing for the metro stats to top the 200K mark and probably exceeding the 250K mark by that time.
And I do agree this is no longer a large town, it is a small city and Idaho Falls and it’s neighbors should start thinking that way. We should plan ahead, otherwise all the money stays in the Treasure Valley.
Vote:
0 0 Didn’t Pocatello hire a lobbyist last year? Was it to lobby state or federal government for more money, or both?
Anyone know what results Pocatello has earned as a result of hiring their lobbyist?
Perhaps Idaho Falls should hire a lobbyist to do the same? Perhaps our MSA should pool money together to hire a lobbyist and get us some of that money we should statistically be getting in relation to the Treasure Valley MSA?
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whew, slow day, time to all start commenting again!
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Vote:
You are absolutely right about IF being a “metro.” I have looked into a possible retail business here and the national industry association told me they consider the IF market to be about 250,000.
The same problem exists in Washington state. Although Spokane is the second largest city there, they only get about 1/5 of the attention from Olympia.