The geography and size of a community determines its status as a metropolitan area. It is the framework which defines a city's population and level of operation.
Physical growth is the sign of a dynamic community.
A vibrant city which can offer public facilities to outlying areas and visualize the need to expand it's framework in order to accommodate a growing population, public development , and economic opportunity. To frame something means putting it together and then enclosing or encircling it. Staring as a humble river community in 1854 it expanded in the 1860s and 1870s with the discovery of gold in Colorado. This allowed the city to become a supply depot for miners as well as western settlers. However, it was the procurement of the Transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad Bridge which insured Omaha's place as the largest metropolitan city in Nebraska.