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I will accept that you can only expand the commuting pop. of a city so far until you queer the concept, but I think you have to include Iredell county (the adjacent county to the north of Mecklenburg connected by I-77) and Lincoln county-especially now that the highway 321 expansion is finished-in the Charlotte metro pop. Otherwise I can't understand how the concept is defined (and the fact is that maybe I am confused here, so if you think so please set me straight).

For what it is worth the first time I ever saw the term exurbia about 15 years ago the textbook used North Carolina as its example of the term.

Interesting information on Williamston county. Is it outside Nashville?

Ya, the County to the south of Davidson (where Nashville is). The place (in particular, the county seat Franklin) was written up in some national magazine as a classic Red Bush zone versus some Gore zone in New Jersey or someplace (secular versus religious and all). Williamson just loved the Dems, until it voted for Wallace. It voted for Carter in 1976, although less emphatically than its neighbors. That is the last time it voted Dem, or ever will.

Interesting information on Williamston county. Is it outside Nashville?

Williamson, not Williamston, and yes, it is immediately to the south of Nashville (whose borders coincide with Davidson County). The old county seat town of Franklin is now becoming a quite desirable place to live, from what I understand (I attended college in Nashville years ago, and there wasn't much to Franklin back then).

OK, I'm back. I have the hard numbers for the Charlotte metro area (election returns & registration) but I'll need to work up the percentages real quick. Before I do that, a couple quick comments.

First, Statesville (Iredell County) is definitely not part of the Charlotte metro. Hickory/Statesville are their own little metro area, if one wants to call it that..

I would personally question whether Salisbury (Rowan Co) is really in the Charlotte metro area, but it is generally assigned to it. It's right between Charlotte & Winston-Salem, but hey, whatever!

As for the York County, that's in South Carolina so it's not included in my figures.

The figures I have are for Mecklenburg, Gaston, Cabarrus, Lincoln, Rowan, and Union Counties between 1992-2004. That's the Greater Charlotte Metropolitan Area. Even without working up the percentages I can tell you that we'll find..

There will be an accelerating GOP drift almost entirely attributable to Union County, with a lesser degree Rowan County. Leaving out Union County, the City of Charlotte and the suburbs more or less cancel one another out.

Let me go get the 1980 presidential numbers too since that came up and then I'll post some figures.