POST FALLS - Area cities on both sides of the border are growing up together.

But whether the two urban areas will be classified as one big happy family - in the U.S. Census Bureau's eyes - remains unclear.

A joint meeting of transportation planning boards from Kootenai and Spokane counties drew about 70 curious representatives from a variety of government agencies on Thursday.

Census data plays a big role in how much federal funding is allocated to the states and agencies in border communities want to ensure they're getting their fair share of the pie, especially if this will be considered one urbanized area.

"There's a lot of anxiety (with border communities) across the country because the smaller communities don't want to be absorbed by the larger urban area," said Christopher Henrie of the U.S. Census Bureau. "Some people are sensitive to how we define urban areas, but there is not one program out there that we design these statistics for. The Census identifies urban and rural areas solely for the purpose of tabulating and presenting statistical data."

Henrie said urban areas won't be defined until later this year, but he said there's a good possibility that the urban areas of Spokane and Coeur d'Alene will remain separate under the 2010 Census.

"We are intending to develop and implement criteria keeping separate all the urban areas that were autonomous in 2000," Henrie said. "If you still qualify as an urban area in 2010, you should retain your own entity."

Henrie said that the majority of the comments the Census received were in favor of keeping the urban areas separate.

How much funding agencies receive based on the Census data has a ripple effect on communities. While the meeting focused on transportation, reps from cities, environmental agencies and other groups are interested.

"It's important to economic development because transportation is a piece of the overall pie," said Steve Griffitts of Jobs Plus, a Coeur d'Alene-based firm that recruits businesses to the area.

Some transportation observers believe it's premature to get worked up over whether the urban areas will be kept separate and how much funding will come down as a result.

Dick Panabaker, representing Hayden on the Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization, said agencies should focus on smaller or safety-oriented projects due to the recession and a rough funding climate.

Staci Lehman, KMPO and Spokane Regional Transportation Council spokeswoman, said it's hard to say if either urban area will be affected until the new urban areas are defined. With two different states and multiple governments involved, there's a lot of uncertainty, she said.

"The wild card, however, is that we're headed into reauthorization of the surface transportation bill," she said. "Depending on what is included in the new bill, the rules could change. But it's too early to say if either, or both, communities will get additional transportation funding due to the growth."