Dalton, Georgia may be America’s carpet capital and Cleveland, Tennessee one of the most improved economic performing U.S. cities, but the two towns could soon lose their status as metropolitan areas.
Two cities in the Chattanooga region are among 144 across the country about to be downgraded to micropolitan areas under a new definition proposed by the federal government.
The change could be more than just a matter of semantics. Officials in some of the affected cities worry it could have adverse implications for federal funding and economic development.
Under the new proposal, a metro area would have to have at least 100,000 people in its core city to count as a Metropolitan Statistical Area, or MSA. That’s double the 50,000-person threshold that has been in place for the past 70 years.
Cities formerly designated as metros with core populations between 50,000 and 100,000 people, such as Cleveland, Dalton and Rome, Georgia, would be changed to “micropolitan” statistical areas instead.