Ultimately this allows city-regions to pool devolved funding with local resources to deliver transport, training and urban regeneration (Larkin and Marshall, 2008). The concept of a micropolitan area was created by the United States Census and features a smaller nucleus the metropolitan statistical area. A Micropolitan Statistical Area is a Core Based Statistical Area associated with at least one urban cluster that has a population of at least 10 000, but less than 50 000. There are a number of cases where partnerships and contracts have been concluded with recently created metropolitan authorities, though largely as ad hoc sectoral partnerships.