Sandy Hausman reports.
For the last 70 years, the federal government has classified communities with more than 50,000 residents as Metropolitan Statistical Areas – using that designation to guide distribution of some grants. Given changes in the nation’s population, a General Services Administration committee recommended downgrading communities with fewer than 100,000 people calling them Micropolitan Areas. David Blount, director of the Virginia Association of Planning District Commissions, says that could hurt Charlottesville and four other parts of the state.
Thomas Jefferson District Planner David Blount hopes the federal government will do more analysis before changing the definition of a Metropolitan Statistical Area.