Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities

I don't know if anyone will read and respond to this before I just go ahead and figure out what to do, but I have a problem. I was working on the Towns and Cities of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania using the data provided by the United States Census Bureau. Now the state is divided up into governing bodies lower than the county. Such bodies include boroughs, townships, and CDP (not sure what it stands for).

Just a note: Census-Designated Place. See any of the counties in Maryland for examples. -- BRG

The problem is this. Townships are not unique to one and only one place. That is, a simple city name of "CITY, STATE" will not be sufficient uniquely identify a city. In fact some towns, like Ephrata, Pennsylvania are both a borough and a township. This may not pose a problem for some towns (like Ephrata), but the township name may be repeated in various counties across the state. Thus, a person looking for Brecknock in Allegheny County may get the page for the Brecknock in Lancaster County, and unless they are a native, they won't know the data is the wrong data. And the people in each township *think* that they live in *the* Brecknock. Also, the famed Intercourse, Pennsylvania is not even an official borough or township. There are many towns that are like that. My guess is that they simply lack a governing body in the town (too small or whatever). But these names could theoretically be used as official names elsewhere causing a naming conflict. I am almost positive that similar naming conflicts can exist in other states (but maybe not all). Is the solution to develop a different (and much more cumbersome) naming system? How can we solve this problem? Or do we just ignore it? -- Ram-Man

I don't really have a strong feeling about including population in the introduction. It is a duplication but giving it also in the introduction does help to give a quick impression of the place decided. The city/town/village continuum is very flexible. What the people of sparsely populated Alaska consider to be a city could have New Yorkers rolling in the aisles with laughter. There needs to be enough flexibility to adapt to local circumstances.

Dan makes an interesting point, it may be typical of a lot of people who live in a town that dominates the surrounding county. People outside of Newton are more likely to associate it with its county. Virginia is interesting in that it considers its major cities as apart from counties.

While I'm here I should mention that I've started to question the wisdom of creating a link for every little town. In the little work that I've done, mostly by random selection with West Virginia, I've found a tremendous number of places where the current population does not exist at all. Many of these names come from the US Geological Surveys Website or from a huge number os scraps of paper with name origins that I won in an auction lot. In my wildest dreams, I do not expect that any more than one or two lines can ever be written about some of them. I found it not very worthwhile to start creating an endless series of stubs, and have opted instead to add the one or two lines to the appropriate county page. Eclecticology

I ran into the same problem in Connecticut, where there are towns and townships and boroughs with the same name. We probably ought to just create one page for all of them and indicate on that page that there are different places. -- Zoe

I don't feel right about that, especially since one township name in PA is used by like 5 or 6 counties. That suggests to me that we should have some kind of naming system to keep them apart. A disambiguation page is fine, but they should all have unique names. Somehow we need to have the township , the county and state. Take "Washington township" for example. We could have [[Washington, Pennsylvania (Lancaster County)]] or [[Washington, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania]]. Does it matter? But for something simple like the town I was born in, Ephrata, Pennsylvania should include both the township and the borough on the same page and just explain the differences under the "Law and Government" heading.

Well, then I vote for Washington, Pennsylvania (Lancaster County). -- Zoe

I got off track trying to track down the Brecknock Townships that you mentioned, and could not find one in Allegheny County as you suggested. I did find one in Berks County which makes mere sense since it is adjacent to Lancaster County, and the two townships are themselves adjecent. See http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu/pasdc/Search/Search.html and http://dgmweb.net/genealogy/6/PA/PA-Cos.htm

In any event and in both occurrences of Brecknock the word "Township" is a part of the name, so it must be a part of the article title in the same way that the word county is a part of a county's name. This is not the case for most boroughs but using it is certainly a consideration when it is something distinct from the city or town. The word "borough" seems to mean different things in different places though and I would avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary. I did raise the issue during the course of the city name disambiguation discussion, and proposed the [city, county, state] format when it would be needed because there are two or more uses of the same name in the same state. Based on the above this would give us [Brecknock Township, Lancaster, Pennsylvania] and [Brecknock Township, Berks, Pennsylvania]] The word "county" can be left out here since it's only purpose is as a disambiguator, but I still tend to use it for counties whose name is the same as that of a state. For Ephrata you would then have [Ephrata, Pennsylvania], [Ephrata Township, Pennsylvania] and [Ephrata, Washington]. I hope this helps. Eclecticology

PS- I've actually visited Ephrata, PA! Reading Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus had made me curious about hearing Beissel's musical style.

PS2- CDP = Census Designated Place.

It seems a waste to me to have both [Ephrata, Pennsylvania], [Ephrata Township, Pennsylvania]. Wouldn't it be simple to just add a new heading to the city which explains the cities within a township (at least in this context a township includes multiple towns and may or may not be a town itself). Or even simpler, forget making two, just put the information in under the Government heading. If we do separate them, there is very little to say in an article on [Ephrata Township, Pennsylvania]. It would be a poor excuse for an article. Oh, and I prefer the city, county, state format with the word "County" removed. -- Ram-Man

For sure. Especially if the town is in the township of the same name. There's always a need to look at each case on its own merits. If you combine them now, nothing prevents us at a later time from dividing them when there is adequate material. Eclecticology

Regarding that city, county, state format with the word "County" removed: I really, really do not like removing the word "county" there. Nobody refers to most counties by their name without the word "county" and in the specific case of Pennsylvania (which seems to have prompted this thread) I have heard of "Springfield, Delaware County" actually used to distinguish it from the other Springfield in the Philadelphia suburbs. -- BRG

I think that a simple redirect should work too. As was said above, it is mainly for disambiguation purposes rather than the name of the place. -- Ram-Man

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This WikiProject so far only deals with U.S. Cities (since it was copied from U.S. States) however a city is generic enough that this WikiProject can apply to them all. How should non-U.S. states be named? -- Ram-Man

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This is a current disagreement: should there be a duplication of population size for a city in the introduction? Is it redundant or is it important enough information to be added to an introduction? -- Ram-Man

A city is defined more by its population than any other factor and to have the population down amongst the standardized "tabular" information seems to be a mistake. By the same token, Denver's height above sea level might be in the first paragraph and appear again in the geography section. I see no harm in giving the population twice, but please put a date and a source on the data, at least in the tabular section.

Is the population the number of people inside the city limits or the number in the metropolitan area (as defined by census or other official body, not the chamber of commerce)? I live in a city Newton, Massachusetts that is also part of the Boston metropolitan area. There is no Newton metropolitan area.

By the way, "city" is a legal classification in Massachusetts. We also have "towns" and there are real differences between them. Towns can have town meetings, for instance. Ortolan88

All information is from the United States Census Bureau, which I will state. They list whether it is a "town" or "city" or "village" or whatever it might be. That is what I use in the articles. There are different ways to define towns. Some people define a town by its legal limits, the postal address, and other factors. As such, when this information is valid for the Census Bureau, it may not be the same as some other body. (I previously didn't site the source of data, and I should have!) All these differences can be noted in the article. -- Ram-Man

I added data to Newton, Massachusetts to show an example of the articles. -- Ram-Man

Sorry, I didn't realize this was an example page, so I edited it. I grew up in Newton, and I think most people from Newton would agree it's very clunky to start out by saying that it's part of Middlesex County. I didn't know what county I was in until I had left. The only reason you ever pay attention to the counties is when you go to court. DanKeshet

All of the other city entries include the county along with the state. It may be that in some states, like Massachusetts, that such a description is odd sounding. In fact I am sure there are a lot of little differences among states and counties and such that I have no idea about. I think I will just have to let others fix my mistakes. Still I would suggest keeping the county because it a) is what all the others are like, and b) it makes my life easier ;-) BTW, it is a real page, and editing it is fine as it helps me to get an idea how to improve the entries I will be adding. -- Ram-Man

I added lots of local color to Newton. Every contributor should look up the town they live in, the town they were born in, the town they went to college in, etc. and add to it. Counties too. Ortolan88

People who live in Deer Park, New York (on Long Island) "actually" reside in Babylon Township. There are many other "cities" which are really part of a larger administrative or political unit. The neat CITY, STATE format works great when addressing a letter -- the zip code will disambiguate. But how do we handle Deer Park, et al.? --Ed Poor

New York is one of those odd states with a much more difficult layout. I think I may have to skip the articles for that state and figure it out later. The census bureau defines Deer Park as a CDP with a population and all. It also defines Babylon (calls it a town for some reason). It gives both places a different code (suggesting that one is contained in the other) but does not specify the relationships. I suppose someone is going to have to edit each entry and add the appropriate information. But I think the county entries already have much of that data, so it should be fairly easy... just not automated. As mentioned in a discussion above, Pennsylvania is also strange in that it has boroughs (towns) and townships with the same names. It causes more problems :) -- Ram-Man