Data will reclassify your city. Bye, bye funding.

What’s happening? The Office of Management and Budget is set to reclassify the size requirements for Metropolitan Statistical Areas. In 1950s when they came up with the size of MSAs, the low end was 50,000. Times changed. There’s a lot more people in the US. Now, they want to change the MSA designation to 100,000 population for core cities.

Why is this important? MSA stays determines federal funding. If you lose your MSA status, you lose the funding access.

How will this be important? It will hit 6 cities in TX, 5 in CA and 9 in PA, among scores of others.

AP | Lawmakers fear turning 144 cities into “micropolitan” areas