Down in Alabama: Metro vs. micro; union vs. boycott; springing forward Updated Mar 08, 2021; podcast: You’ve surely heard the phrase, “metropolitan statistical area.” Sometimes for places that may or may not feel very “metropolitan” to you. It’s a subjective word. Some of us feel a little cramped in Vinegar Bend. Others need to be able to walk to an Apple Store and a Cheesecake Factory to feel connected to the world. A proposal has been out there that would change the threshhold for what qualifies a place to be considered a “metropolitan statistical area” -- reportedly just for categorization purposes, although some fear there could be negative consequences for some areas.