The Great Glom: Spokane-Coeur d'Alene To Become One Metropolitan Area | Community Spirit

Anyone who lives here has a habit of calling it the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area, but now the Census Bureau wants to make it official.

Instead of separate entities, it appears we'll be getting glommed together into one giant metropolitan area. The bureau plans to call us, Spokane-Coeur d'Alene.

This all means the 138,000 people who live in Kootenai County will be teamed up with the 471,000 people living in Spokane County to make one giant area with 609,000 people. That will make us the 87th largest city in America, just ahead of Lakeland, Florida and just behind Boise.

We'll maintain our separate statuses for another 2 years until the statistical change takes effect in 2013.