Cookeville Falls Short Of Metropolitan Statistical Area By 800 People

City of Cookeville falls short of achieving a metropolitan status by just 800 people.

City Manager James Mills said that was based on the 2020 census data. He said the threshold is 50,000 people to reach the designation.

“We’ve had conversations with the Census Bureau to talk about if there was any way we could address this and look for the other 800 because we feel like some blocks were left out that could have been included,” Mills said. “So today we asked Senator Blackburn about helping us out with that.”

Mills said that becoming a Metropolitan Statistical Area would open the city up to several new opportunities. He said that includes the potential for more federal funding or CDBG funding.

Mills said the next steps will be to work with Blackburn’s office. He said that hopefully with Blackburn’s support, more conversations can be had about revisiting the census data.