Demographic Change Creates New Types of Regional Metropolises

"This work is showing not only how our country's demographic dynamism confounds conventional wisdom about cities versus suburbs, but also how it complicates traditional notions of regional identity in America.

Indeed, we find that there's a new "metro map" of the nation that unites places not by their age or geographic proximity, but by their demographic similarities. These associations relate to three of the key dimensions of demographic transformation in metro areas-population growth, racial and ethnic change, and educational attainment. Through the lens of these metro areas, we identify seven distinct new demographic regions of the United States."

The new demographic regions include places with higher-than-average educational attainment, high rates of diversity, and places with lower-than-average shares of Hispanic or Asian populations.