Talk:Statistical area (United States)

"Primary statistical areas" - do these really exist?

Over the past few months, I went through and updated the state-level statistical area with 2023 population statistics and delineations provided by the OMB in their latest bulletin. I was reviewing the talk page history for the old version of this page and noticed a discussion about whether or not the concept of a "primary statistical area" actually exists, or if this is a neologism. I think this discussion is still relevant and am wondering if anyone watching this page might have thoughts on if we should continue to count and rank "primary statistical areas" on these pages.

Currently within the ecosystem of these pages, "primary statistical areas" are any "top level" delineated statistical area. This always includes all combined statistical areas, and also includes metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas which are not part of a combined statistical area.

While in my subjective view, this distinction makes sense, reading the discussion as well as reviewing the sources we have available is leading me to wonder if we need to abandon the term "primary statistical area" and have this page rank the core-based statistical areas and combined statistical areas separately (and cascade this change down to the state-level pages as well). The OMB bulletin does not refer to "primary statistical areas" in any way, and searching for "primary statistical area" in quotes in a search engine does not bring up any primary sources (pardon the pun) from the US government or elsewhere.

I'm currently of the opinion that we forego the notion of a "primary statistical area" entirely and rework these pages to reflect this, but I can't claim to be an expert on this, so I'll leave this discussion item up for a while to see if anyone has thoughts on this before I start making any changes. I had intended to update this page just to update the populations and delineations/naming of the areas, but this realization has given me pause. Rhonetalsma (talk) 21:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The concept of a "primary statistical area" is 100% WP:OR and does not belong here. We already have lists of CBSAs and their subsets (Metropolitan and Micropolitan statistical areas), as well as a list of Combined statistical areas. Information about primary statistical areas can be removed, because all of its information is redundant, as well as being inappropriate. Please see my reasoning at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Primary statistical area. - Eureka Lott 23:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)