Migration Data and Matrix Methods: Deriving the Network of U.S. Central Places.

Inter-county flows of commuters have long been used by the Bureau of the Census to identify MSAs and by the BEA to identify its Economic Areas. This paper looks at U.S. interregional flows of commuters, population, and goods in an effort to identify broader patterns of relationships among U.S. regions. A region’s primary flow up the central place hierarchy is found using tools commonly employed in Social Network Analysis. The results allow classification of regions in two ways: 1) as levels in a hierarchy; or 2) as a member of a group of regions all tied to the same member of the next-highest level of the hierarchy.