The lead, front-page news article in today's Times, about a claim by some economists that moving can improve outcomes for poor families, includes this sentence: "The places most conducive to upward mobility include large cities — San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Providence, R.I. — and major suburban counties, such as Fairfax, Va.; Bergen, N.J.; Bucks, Pa.; Macomb, Mich.; Worcester, Mass.; and Contra Costa, Calif."
The population of Providence, R.I., was 178,042 in the 2010 census and was estimated by the census at 177,994 for July 1, 2013. The population of the city of Worcester, Mass., was 181,045 in the 2010 census and was estimated by the census at 182,544 for July 1, 2013. If Providence is a "large city" by the Times definition, then so is Worcester. Certainly it's inaccurate to describe Worcester as a "suburban county," as the county of Worcester includes rural towns like Petersham and Royalston, the city of Worcester, and suburban areas like Holden and Northborough. If the Times is under the impression that Worcester County is a suburb of Boston in the way that, say, Fairfax, Va,. is a suburb of Washington, D.C., or Bergen County in New Jersey is a suburb of New York City, it has it wrong. You'd think that maybe the Times company would have figured that out from having having owned the Worcester Telegram and Gazette and the Boston Globe for all those years, but alas, they never quite figured it out, and, to judge by today's story, they still haven't.