Voglio sapere a riguardo di…

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 32 / Friday, February 19, 2021 / Notices and bases qualification on a measure that is not subject to variance resulting from the Census Bureaus disclosure avoidance methodology. The proposed 4,000-housing unit threshold approximates the 10,000-person threshold based on the national average of 2.6 persons per household. We are proposing use of either threshold for qualification of an area as urban, based on the recognition that some areas have average persons per household sizes larger than the national average of 2.6, or may contain a substantial number of persons living in group quarters or both, and, as a result, may have populations of 10,000 or more, but less than 4,000 housing units.

tkelley on DSKBCP9HB2PROD with NOTICES

Cease Distinguishing Different Types of Urban Areas The Census Bureau proposes to cease distinguishing different types of urban areas. In adopting this proposal, the Census Bureau would identify urban areas of 4,000 or more housing units or 10,000 or more persons without distinguishing types of urban areas. The 50,000-person threshold that has been used to distinguish between urbanized areas and smaller urban areas whether urban places outside urbanized areas or urban clusters no longer has the same meaning as when it was adopted in 1950 and, therefore, should no longer be used to distinguish types of urban areas.
Further, the threshold is, to some extent, arbitrary; that is, as far as the Census Bureau has been able to determine from scholarship, there is no reason to assume that an urban area of just over 50,000 persons is fundamentally different in terms of economic and social functions and services than an area with just under 50,000 persons.
Lastly, federal agencies apply a range of thresholds to various urban-rural classifications. These thresholds can be applied to the published data by the individual agencies to meet their own objectives.
Maximum Distances of Jumps Jumps and the shorter distance hops recognize that urban development is not always a continuous and contiguous process across the landscape, and facilitate inclusion of noncontiguous densely developed territory that is considered part of the nearby urban area. For more information about the history and evolution of the jump and hop concepts, see A Century of Delineating a Changing Landscape: The Census Bureaus Urban and Rural Classification, 1910 to 2010, available at https www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/
reference/ua/Century_of_Defining_
Urban.pdf. The Census Bureau
VerDate Sep<11>2014

21:07 Feb 18, 2021

Jkt 253001

proposes reducing the maximum jump distance to 1.5 miles, returning to the maximum distance employed in urban area delineation from the 1950 Census through the 1990 Census. Data users, analysts, and some urban geographers expressed concern that the 2.5 mile maximum jump distance adopted for the 2000 Census was too generous in some situations and resulted in overextension of urban area territory.
The Census Bureau proposed reverting to 1.5 miles in the proposed criteria for the 2010 Census, but responses from commenters were inconclusive and, as a result, no change was made. We continue to be concerned about the possible overextension of urban area territory in some situations as a result of the 2.5 mile maximum jump distance.
The impervious surface criteria adopted in 2010 accounted for non-residential urban land uses, many of which also were in mind when we extended the jump distance for the 2000 Census.
Thus, the two criteria serve largely the same purpose, but are applied separately, and when taken together, they can result in overextension of urban territory.
No Longer Include the Low Density Hop or Jump Corridor in the Urban Area The Census Bureau proposes to no longer include within an urban area the low density territory intervening between the main body of the urban area and the outlying qualifying territory that is the destination of a hop or a jump or exempted territory that has been separated from the urban area core by water or wetlands. This will result in noncontiguous urban areas. Review of 2010 Census urban areas indicates that, due to their often irregular and relatively large geographic extent, including the corridor blocks sometimes resulted in the inclusion of population, housing, and territory that is otherwise of a rural nature and contains land uses that are not consistent with those found in the densely developed blocks on either end of the hop or jump corridor.
We note that the 1950 Census criteria for defining urbanized areas, while permitting jumps of up to 1.5 miles across low density intervening territory, did not call for inclusion of the low density jump corridor in the urban area.
This change in criteria will result in a more accurate depiction of the patterns of urban development.
No Longer Include Low-Density Territory Located Within Indentations Formed During the Urban Area Delineation Process Consistent with concerns about overbounding of urban areas and with
PO 00000

Frm 00007

Fmt 4703

Sfmt 4703

10239

the decision to no longer include the low-density hop and jump corridors within urban areas, we propose to cease including low-density territory within indentations that are formed during the delineation process when densely developed, qualifying territory surrounds low-density territory on three sides. Previous urban area criteria provided for the inclusion of indentations, when specified conditions were met, to 1 account for potential non-residential urban land uses that may be located within the indentation, 2 account for the potential for higher density development in the near future, and 3 produce smoother, less complicated boundaries for mapping purposes. Review of land uses within indentations formed during the 2010
urban area delineation has indicated that much of the territory remains less developed and less urban in character.
Given that the impervious surface criteria are sufficient for identifying non-residential urban land uses and that modern computerized mapping and visualization methods provide the ability for users to view boundaries are various scales or zoom levels, thus reducing the need for smoother boundaries, we no longer see a need to close off indentations when delineating urban areas.
Splitting of Large Agglomerations of Densely Settled Territory The automated process utilized by the Census Bureau results in the delineation of large agglomerations of continuously developed territory. While there is value in the identification of large agglomerations, some are too large and extensive to be of use for most analyses involving urban areas. Examples of large agglomerations of continuously developed territory exist throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, some encompassing only a pair of urban areas; others encompassing three or more urban areas extending across multiple states.
The question of when and how to merge adjacent urban areas or split large agglomerations has existed since the delineation of urban areas for the 1960
Census. Past criteria relied upon metropolitan statistical area or primary metropolitan statistical area definitions to determine whether to merge adjacent urban areas or, as was the case in the 2010 Census criteria, split agglomerations based on the previous decades urbanized areas. Neither of these approaches relied upon objective measures consistent with the same time frame as the measures used in the delineation process. In other words, agglomerations were delineated based
E:FRFM19FEN1.SGM

19FEN1