Murfreesboro Links to Nashville: A City Gains Footing in Metro Statistical Area

Daily News Journal (7/15/03)

By John Callow/ Staff Reporter

U.S. Census Bureau statisticians recently delivered one of those good news-bad news messages to Murfreesboro.

The bad news was Murfreesboro will not be designated as one of the new micropolitan statistical areas created with data from the 2000 federal census.

The good news is the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area, of which Murfreesboro and Rutherford County have been a part for many years, is now the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro MSA.

“This can be interpreted in a number of different ways,” said Tim Graeff, associate professor of management and marketing at MTSU.

“It could certainly be a positive sign to companies expanding to this area,” he said. “It indicates that Nashville and Murfreesboro are becoming more connected.”

A company thinking about opening a business, new stores or restaurants will immediately know that Murfreesboro comprises an important component of the demographics generated in the MSA, he said.

A year ago when there was speculation Murfreesboro would become its own micropolitan statistical area, the Census Bureau was still working on definitions. The final definition ruled Murfreesboro out. A micropolitan statistical area must “have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population,” according to the definitions issued by the federal Office of Management and Budget. Murfreesboro’s official 2000 population count was 68,812. (A recent special census for the state moved that number to 75,083.)

What that extra 18,000 people did was make Murfreesboro a “principal city” in the existing MSA and earn it equal standing with Nashville and Davidson County in the labeling process.

Tennessee has 10 Metropolitan statistical areas, 17 micropolitan statistical areas (Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Columbia all have achieved micropolitan status) and five combined statistical areas. The Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro MSA has been joined with Columbia to form the only combined statistical area in the midstate.

Ninety-three percent of the U.S. population is included in either a metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

That means the numbers developed within each have value to researchers as well as marketers, said David Penn, director of MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center.

“From a research point of view, what the renaming of the MSA does is raise the visibility of Murfreesboro quite a bit,” Penn said. “Researchers frequently look at MSA rankings, and now they’ll see Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro instead of just Nashville. If nothing else, it provides a context for where Murfreesboro is. I can’t see anything negative to it.”

How the metropolitan rather than micropolitan status should be viewed depends on your point of view, he suggested.

“It depends on whether you’d rather be perceived as part of a large urban area or part of a smaller urban area in a rural area,” he said.

Whatever the reason Murfreesboro got its name associated with Nashville for statistical purposes doesn’t really matter, said Steve Benefield, president of the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s just one more way to draw attention to the good things that are happening in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County,” he said. “We’re just tickled to be recognized like this, and we’re certainly going to take every advantage of it we can.”