A selected group of 1950 SMA's are examined to determine the extent to which they comprise self-sufficient trading areas with respect to local service activities. By comparing the self-sufficiency of each SMA to the self-sufficiency of its urbanized area and of an areal unit made up of the SMA plus contiguous counties, the quality of each SMA is evaluated. Each SMA is classified as being either overbounded, underbounded or truebounded. The type of boundary discrepancy exhibited by an SMA is strongly related to its degree of proximity to other SMA's and is unrelated to its population size.
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Allan G. Feldt (1965) studied this question.