In the U.S. state of New York, every piece of land is part of an incorporated municipality below the county level. Most of the land is in a town - what is called a township in several other states. There are a large number of towns that contain incorporated villages or cities with the same exact name, and a number more with such unincorporated communities (some of the census-designated places). Talk:Administrative divisions of New York/Disambiguated divisions is currently a table of just those beginning with A (plus a relatively small number of completely different places in different counties that share a name).
Presently, most of the undisambiguated page titles are disambiguation pages (for instance Adams, New York). But some, like Athens, New York, redirect to the town, and others, like Binghamton, New York, redirect to the smaller (but often more important) place.
When linking to such a place, sometimes one wants the town: "Bar Creek runs through the rural areas of Foo Town". Sometimes one wants the smaller place: "Route 6 intersects Route 87 in downtown Foo". But often one either doesn't know: "Bar was born in Foo", or one wants to refer to both: "Foo is in the Bar Mountains". Thus, not all links can be disambiguated properly, and Foo, New York should not be a disambiguation page unless there is an unrelated place - in another county - with the same name.
I propose merging the two articles. This will not imply that the two municipalities are the same; a clear distinction will be made in the article. But this is really the only way to avoid links to disambiguation pages without arbitrarily redirecting to one or the other. --SPUI (T - C) 01:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)