I’ve discussed the Separation of New York City as its own State and created fictional maps of New York City State, the research I undertook in order to underpin these logical exercises is interesting in its own right, and worth sharing.
The Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget are arms of the Executive Branch which count people and submit and administer the president’s annual budget proposal respectively. Interestingly OMB has as a tool called a Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). MSA’s are, geographic entities defined by the OMB for use by Federal statistical agencies in collecting, tabulating, and publishing Federal statistics.
Furthermore:

A metro area contains a core urban area of 50,000 or more population, and a micro area contains an urban core of at least 10,000 (but less than 50,000) population. Each metro or micro area consists of one or more counties and includes the counties containing the core urban area, as well as any adjacent counties that have a high degree of social and economic integration (as measured by commuting to work) with the urban core.

OMB and the Federal Government already statistically count large overlapping urban centers as economically and politically connected, irregardless of their politics boundary or if they are in the same State. While the use of MSA is purely for administration and statistical purposes, it is interesting to take a look at the Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas Wall Maps which begin to paint a picture of America which belies the Rural mythos American’s still cling too.
To see how the OMB and the Census Bureau see the New York City Region, and what the fictional New York City State would look like, google or look up the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, also known as the New York metropolitan area.