‘We don’t like it’: Dothan leaders oppose proposal to downgrade city from metropolitan status

In January, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a public notice stating a proposal to raise the minimum population threshold from 50,000 to 100,000 for metropolitan statistical area (MSA) designation. The change would downgrade Dothan and six other Alabama areas – Anniston-Oxford, Auburn-Opelika, Daphne-Fairhope-Foley, Decatur, Florence-Muscle Shoals, and Gadsden – so they would be considered micropolitan areas.

“We don’t like it,” Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce President Matt Parker said Monday. “We don’t know what it means from a federal funding standpoint. We don’t want to go backward, we want to go forward.”

The DACC uses the MSA status to attract businesses and to show that Dothan is a regional center point for economic activity and vitality. Reclassification of Dothan and six other areas would leave Alabama with only five metro areas: Hunstville, Birmingham-Hoover, Mobile, Montgomery, and Tuscaloosa.

Parker and Dothan Mayor Mark Saliba are also concerned the change could impact money for federally funded programs like Community Development Block Grants, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, and funding for federal highways, other infrastructure improvements, and some urban grants.

The major issue leaders have at hand is that the public has not been given insight as to the purpose of the delineation.

In August 2019, an OMB committed submitted the original draft document that proposed the change, saying the threshold for being classed as an MSA has been set at 50,000 people since 1950, and the country’s population had more than doubled in the meantime.

The committee recommended doubling the threshold to 100,000 to reflect the trend in population growth. Metropolitan areas with core populations of 50,000 to 99,999 would now be classed as micropolitan. Areas with populations between 10,000 and 49,999 would continue to qualify as micropolitan.

“There is just not enough information that tells us exactly how harmful this change could be to the City of Dothan,” Saliba said. “It could open the door in the future for further cuts.”

Saliba also pointed out that Dothan is more similar to what is currently considered a metropolitan area rather than a micropolitan area because of the manner in which it has grown over the years.

Most metropolitan areas act as anchors for economic growth for their region whereas micropolitan areas typically grow because they are geographically tied to an existing metropolitan area.

“We are different in that way compared to most places. We have grown to the size of the seventh largest city in the state without the help of a larger city right next to us and that’s my concern with the present change,” Saliba said.

The original draft projects that the new standards would be applied in 2023 if adopted by the OMB. In late January, the Federal Register carried a notice that the OMB was seeking public comment on the proposal. The public comment period was to last 60 days from the date the notice was published, Jan. 19.

Some cities in Alabama have already submitted their formal opposition to the change and Dothan plans to follow suit following its Tuesday city commission meeting. The DACC board also plans to meet on Wednesday and will likely approve a letter to oppose the change.