By Ken Alltucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Greater Cincinnati has a new shape, thanks to the federal government. But people in Hamilton aren't happy with the new name.

The government added Kentucky's Bracken and Indiana's Franklin counties to the Greater Cincinnati region as part of a once-a-decade review of metropolitan area boundaries.

Now metro Cincinnati includes 15 counties with a population of 2,040,746 spanning three states as of July 2002. The two counties add 31,067 residents.

Meanwhile, Office of Management and Budget officials stripped the city of Hamilton from its regional designator. Now we're officially the Cincinnati-Middletown metropolitan statistical area

The name of a region's largest city always comes first, but the rules for adding a secondary city are trickier.

Secondary cities must have at least 50,000 residents. (The 2000 Census listed Hamilton's population at 60,690, Middletown's 51,605). The number of jobs within city limits also is a factor.

"It's a measure of the relative economic strength of the city," said Michael Ratcliffe, a U.S. Census Bureau geographer.

Hamilton Mayor Donald Ryan was surprised. "We're the county seat," he said.

The updated metro boundaries can change how the government divvies up development dollars.

Because the updated boundaries stem from a review of measures such as commuting patterns and job growth, Cincinnati area officials say it's another sign of the region's expanding reach in Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.

E-mail kalltucker@enquirer.com