Based on: https://www.mark-pearson.com/airport-distances/

> Half the people in the United States live within 17 miles of a decent-sized airport, and ninety percent of the country lives within 58 miles (about an hours drive). Twenty-five percent of the population lives pretty darn close: less than 9 miles.

it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro".

>> it would seem that the vast majority of the USA lives "in or near a greater metro"

To the extent that you consider the cities of Monroe (Louisiana), Ketchikan (Alaska), Elmira (New York), and La Crosse (Wisconsin) to be the centers of "greater metro" areas.

They're not greater metro areas in the same sense that NYC, LA, SF, or Boston are greater metro areas.

True, but I'd certainly consider those "cities" and not "rural" but you can draw the line elsewhere; whatever or wherever you draw the line a substantial group of people live "in a metro area".

The US Census defines 80% of the US population as being urban. As you say, you can draw the line anywhere and I assume the US Census is defining things it as being something along the lines of being somewhat accessible to a city of not completely trivial size. Which is fine as long as people don't read that as 80% of the population living somewhere that looks anything like a sizable city.

He's including a lot of airports that are not what most people think of as "a greater metro" like KFAT or KGCN

Yeah, I don't think that's a good metric for "greater metro". Some of the "major" airports they listed were the closest for a grand total of about 3000 people.

I live in a small rural college town in upstate NY that has its own municipal airport; there are more than 3000 people here (especially during the school year!) for whom this is the closest airport, and it's...well, it's tiny, with (AFAIK) zero regular flights to or from anywhere else.

The closest cities are Utica and Syracuse, each about 30 miles away. Only Syracuse has an airport that's worth driving to if you don't own your own plane (SYR is on the list as being closest for 1.2 million people—probably including me? The maps aren't loading, so I can't tell), and I've never heard anyone describe Syracuse, NY as being a "greater metro area".

I'd like to see someone do something similar with international airport, some of those are pretty small but the vast majority are "big".

You could also just draw a line further up the list. 100K passengers/year is under 300/day so you may be looking at a handful of regional jet flights that are mostly (or only) to the nearest significant airport.

Just eyeballing the list, what I'd consider a "significant" airport probably has a cutoff closer to a million passengers per year.

I'm not sure if there is a proper definition for an international airport, but I'd think of it as an airport with US Customs and/or Immigration services.

I think you'd be surprised how many there are, especially within a few hundred miles of the Canadian or Mexican border! My local general aviation airport, with no commercial passenger flights, is an international airport because of nearby business/industrial activity.