the basic problem is that these things are defined by county. By all rights, Ottawa County should be included. I live in Allendale. It is a GR suburb. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional. Naturally, Jenison and Hudsonville areas are also suburbs. And you barely leave Hudsonville before you hit Zeeland, which is a definite suburb of Holland. Is Holland a suburb? No, but neither is St. Paul a suburb of Minneapolis -- that does not mean that they cannot share a metro area. Ottawa County makes sense as part of the GR metro. Muskegon is questionable, but the old delineation of GR-Holland-Muskegon as one metro does make more sense than lumping Jenison in with Holland, and putting Dorr and Wayland as part of the Allegan micropolitan area. By the way, how's this for logical -- part of the City of Holland is NOT within the Holland metro area, because they city limits lie in both Ottawa and Allegan Counties. Go figure.
Anyway, that's kind of off topic, but I just wanted to make the point that the current metro area definitions do not allow for a realistic number however you look at it. The CSA is probably the closest to accurate.
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"There are only two things worth aiming for -- good music and a clean conscience." -- Paul Hindemith
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