I asked mr. mm who is more familiar with state history and politics than I am.
He said that traditionally, *upstate* was anything west of the Hudson River. And NYCer’s considered Albany sort of a detached suburb of NYC.
Albany is NYC’s cesspool.
LOL ... that’s sort of the crux of the issue - who gets to define the meaning of “upstate”?
For many NYC residents it’s practically anything north or west of Yonkers. But all my CNY relatives tell me, no, they are not “upstate”, they are CNY!
As for all those other regions mentioned, it’s basically the same in Manhattan - one can either divide it into three areas - uptown, midtown and downtown - or into several areas - upper east side, upper west side, theatre district, garment district, financial district, alphabet city, etc. So when you divide the state that way then the “central” district is smaller and does not include Albany. But as mentioned, how does it work if you divide it into only three areas, such as we do in Manhattan?
From what I can see, there is no clear authority on where the boundaries are when folks refer to either just “upstate” only, or to all three - upstate, central, and downstate - so I guess it just depends on who is talking about it.