Answer Man Ponders Making Washington Greater

Tim's group defines "Greater Washington" as the District of Columbia and the counties of Frederick, Montgomery, Howard, Anne Arundel, Prince George's, Calvert, Charles, St. Mary's, Arlington, Alexandria (a city, technically), Fairfax, Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania.

No Warren County? "We don't lose a lot of sleep over that," Tim said.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments is even more selective. It leaves out Fauquier, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Howard, Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's. (For the record, The Washington Post uses the more inclusive Board of Trade definition.)

David Garrison, deputy director of the Brookings Institution's Greater Washington Research Program, said Greater Washington is in the eye of the beholder. Brookings uses different boundaries for different studies.

"It's a question of what you're trying to measure," David said.

Robert Lang, director of Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute, predicts that the circle will get larger and larger. It has to. The economic interdependence is simply too strong to limit the "Greater Washington" area to the District and its cozy suburbs.

Before too long, he said, we'll be talking about "Greater Baltimore-Washington-Richmond."

If you have a question about the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, send it to answerman@washpost.com.