Rural counties lumped into metro areas as more of their residents commute to metros' core counties

Rural Minnesota is slowly shrinking, at least in the most common definition, and that's not the only state where it's happening.

The number of metropolitan counties in Minnesota has risen from 13 to 16, Minnesota Public Radio reports. Once rural counties, Mille Lacs, Sibley and Le Sueur counties "are now considered by the federal Office of Management and Budget part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area." (Graphic by MPR shows three counties in green)

"The government uses these statistical areas to make comparisons across the country's urban areas because they are defined more consistently than the legal boundaries of cities and counties," MPR reports. "A county is added to an MSA when more than a quarter of its workforce commutes to the 'core counties' of the statistical area." (Read more)