What counts as urban vs non-urban. You mentioned upstate New York districts focused on Albany, Rochester and Buffalo, but those are all mid-size cities, no?
The Buffalo area covers about 1.5 CD's, so I would not characterize that as mini myself. Rochester is about exactly equal to one CD. Albany also has about 1.5 CD's. To me mini means a metro area that takes in considerably less than one CD, say one half or less. That would be like Schenectady. YMMV.
You raise a good point here. I am defining it too widely.
for New York it could be:
Urban is every CD in NYC+Albany CD+Rochester CD+Buffalo CD
Suburban is every CD in Long Island+SPM's seat+Lowey's seat
Mini metro is the Syracuse CD (Onondaga County has less people than Monroe County and needs some of the Finger Lakes region to reach quota)
everything else is rural
