Population statistics are among my favorites. According to this article, what was formerly known as the San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland metropolitan statistical area, is now known as the San Jose/San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan statistical area. Catch that? San Jose is now listed first, reflecting it's larger population.

Fair enough. The bay area is clearly a single urban entity, even if it is stratified in many ways. The naming conventions for such entities in the
United States dictate that the largest incorporated city in the area gets listed first. For example, DC's area is referred to as the "Baltimore-Washington" area.

Although this is probably really boring to most people, you can't help but recognize the psychological significance of this. While flying into SFO, if the pilot welcomes you to the "San Jose" area, it will certainly change people's perceptions of the place, to San Francisco's loss.

Given that San Jose is still little more than a bunch of parking lots with some office parks here and there, this is quite disheartening to those of us who have more refined urban interests at heart, and it's unfair to San Francisco (which is clearly a vastly more important city in almost every area). But so it goes with statistics. They key is to be able to see through them.

Before I bore you to death, allow my hometown pride to tell you that Milwaukee is almost twice as big as Boston, Atlanta, Miami, St. Louis and a host of other more famous cities, but what counts in that case is the metropolitan population, which Milwaukee lacks. Point is, San Francisco dosn't really have that much to worry about.

Anyway, none of this really matters when you think about it. I just can't help obsessing over this stuff.