vary widely by state, as do the laws governing how a place can modify its boundaries through annexation, de-annexation, merging, or other procedures (Palmer and Lindsey, 2001). This variation in the legal landscape, along with varying rates of growth across incorporated and unincorporated places by region, results in a varied distribution of population by incorporation status across states and regions (Johnson et al., 2004).
While the distribution of population inside and outside incorporated places has been examined at the national, regional, and state levels (Johnson et al., 2004), little research has focused on this distribution inside and outside metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas. Knowledge of how residents are distributed across incorporated and unincorporated jurisdictions within metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, together with data on the number of local government entities in each area, can provide an opportunity to identify areas where high levels of local geopolitical fragmentation exist. These are areas where a relatively high number of local government jurisdictions (typically incorporated suburbs of large cities) exist in close proximity to one another, often with adjacent territorial boundaries. Such areas may present challenges not only to the local jurisdictions directly responsible for service provision, but also to state and federal policies directed towards the provision of local services.
This paper seeks to provide a foundation for future research by presenting Census 2000 population data for the area inside and outside incorporated places at the national level, as well as for individual metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas. The number of local governmental entities (county, governmentally active minor civil division, and incorporated place) in 2003 is also presented for each metro and micro area.
April 1, 2000 population data tabulated for all incorporated places as of January 1, 2003 were obtained via the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program. These data provided a record for each place-county part, thereby identifying the county or counties in which each place was located. The county information for each place was then matched against the list of metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area component counties as of the June 6, 2003 Office of Management and Budget definitions of those statistical areas. Finally, population data for incorporated places (as well as the unincorporated balance of each county, where applicable) were aggregated for all metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, and for United States as a whole. Data used were from the 2003 vintage of the April 1, 2000 estimates base – a re-tabulation of Census 2000 population data in 2003 geography, including corrections to the census processed through the Count Question Resolution Program, as well as postcensal administrative updates, and geographic updates. The places included reflect the universe of places for which the Census Bureau publishes postcensal population estimates, including all actively functioning incorporated places, plus the census designated places of Honolulu, HI, and Arlington, VA (under special agreements between the Census Bureau and the states of Hawaii and Virginia). The number of counties, functioning minor civil divisions (MCDs), and incorporated places in 2003 was also aggregated for each metro and micro area to provide a total number of local governmental entities for each area.
Most people lived in incorporated places.
There were 19,450 incorporated places in the United States as of January 1, 2003. These places included more than 175 million people – just over 60 percent of the total population of the United States in Census 2000 (Table 1). The majority of the incorporated place population (over 153 million, or about 88 percent) lived inside metropolitan statistical areas (Table 2). Nearly 14 million persons (about 8 percent of the incorporated place population) lived inside incorporated places located within micropolitan statistical areas. Almost 8 mill