I hear some cities call the larger area as metro (Vancouver) and other cities call it greater (Toronto). Is there a functional difference? Generally speaking, is one more urbanized than the other?
I hear some cities call the larger area as metro (Vancouver) and other cities call it greater (Toronto). Is there a functional difference? Generally speaking, is one more urbanized than the other?
I always took it like Manhattan vs all of NYC. Manhattan and maybe Brooklyn is the metro part, and all 4 boroughs are the greater city.
I would say Chicago is maybe a better example. All around Chicago, you have a number of cities where a good majority of people living there commute into “the city.” All these places kind of run into one another to make a large metro area. Further out, there’s more space between towns, so they don’t seem like part of Chicago. Still a good number of people in those towns often work somewhere in the metro area.
I’ve always considered a “metro area” to include the immediate feeder communities that but up to one another and “the city” itself, and the “greater area” getting into the further out suburbs that are a little more spread out but feed into the metro area.