Talk:List of Buffalo metropolitan area schools

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New York (state): Western NY

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Why metro area?

First of all, there's no such thing as the "Buffalo metropolitan area". It's the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area. Second, I don't think it's a useful way to group these schools, as a school in Orchard Park has very little in common with one in Lockport (at least, no more than it would have with one in, say, Medina). Limiting the article to just Erie County may be a better idea, as schools within a county do at least share some funding sources. Powers ^T 20:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The people at the search engines are going to be shocked! Here's the search result:

Google

"Results 1 - 10 of about 1,050,000 for buffalo metropolitan area. (0.25 seconds)"
"Results 1 - 10 of about 15,700,000 for buffalo metro area. (0.27 seconds)"

Yahoo

"6,710,000 results for buffalo metropolitan..."
"17,600,000 results for buffalo metro area"

Bing

Buffalo metropolitan area - "ALL RESULTS 1-10 of 2,690,000 results"

Buffalo metro area - "ALL RESULTS 1-10 of 6,240,000 results"

Buffalo metro - "ALL RESULTS 1-10 of 12,700,000 results"

Wikipedia defines a metropolitan area as: "A metropolitan area is a large population center consisting of a large metropolis and its adjacent zone of influence, or of more than one closely adjoining neighboring central cities and their zone of influence. One or more large cities may serve as its hub or hubs, and the metropolitan area is normally named after either the largest or most important central city within it."

What your refering to, Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area, is a governmental definition and statistical listing for the United States metropolitan areas around the country . This is not the definition for a "metropolitan area" that is being used for this list.Shinerunner (talk) 23:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the search engine results are supposed to prove, since those search terms will find both phrases in question unless surrounded by quotation marks. Anyway, I believe the governmental definition is the one in predominant use on Wikipedia, so a deviation from that—if a deviation must be used—ought to be noted and the alternative inclusion criteria well-defined. Powers ^T 03:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]