Why was Salem taken out of the Portland Metro? Olympia is considered to be in the Seattle Metro - est. time to Seattle: 1 hr 10 min. Salem is not in the Portland Metro - est. time to Portland: 50 min. The Portland metro today is around 2.3 million. However, if Salem was in the metro it would boost the population to around 2.6+ million. Salem's size surprised me a bit. That cities metro population is nearing 500k. Just something I'm curious about.
It is? I'm not being facetious in asking, I'm genuinely curious. As an Olympia resident, I never see anything referring to it as part of the Seattle Metro area.
Concur. Lived in Lacey 4 years, and the only thing I ever heard was that it wasn't part of the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett Corridor. How about Chehalis? Yelm? Burlington?
You ever seen that big patch of farmland that sits between Salem and Wilsonville? simple geography dictates that Portland and Salem reside in separate Metropolitan areas, now if in fifty or one hundred years the whole area fills in with houses and denser population densities, then I guess it's possible that you could merge the two into a single statistical unit, but frankly, thank God that shit-hole Portland isn't part of the gleaming gem that is Salem ... wait ... did I get that backwards?
Ever been to Salem? I lived in the sewer called Keizer for a couple of years and it just stank. Then there's the ho's walking the filthy Lancaster Dr and crack dealers at night at the capitol area. Trust me, nobody wants Salem.
