Cities Template‑class

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United States Template‑class

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Since this navbox appears to be intended to link together metropolitan areas, why is it being applied to the articles for the central cities instead of articles for the metro areas? - EurekaLott (talk) 02:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Combined Statistical Areas are far more accurate definitions of an "urban area" in this country than a Metropolitan Statistical Area. For example, Riverside, San Jose and Baltimore are all clearly part of another urban agglomeration. Thus, this has been reverted. MojaveNC (talk) 03:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, that is incorrect. See United States urban area for actual urban areas. Also, if you read the technical details of Combined Statistical Areas, one is not supposed to rank CSAs and MSAs together. There is some discussion about that at Talk:Combined Statistical Area. CSAs contain multiple metropolitan areas and multiple urban areas and are more similar to multi-centric regions. --Polaron | Talk 05:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Regardless of the technical definitions, real-world situations dictate that America's largest metropolitan areas are best defined first by CSAs, then by MSAs when CSAs are not available. Only someone at a desk in Washington, D.C. would argue that Riverside-San Bernardino is not part of Greater Los Angeles (where is the dividing line? The county line? The division between river basins? The 57 Freeway?) or that Winston-Salem and Greensboro are not the same animal. This table does not claim to offer any proper nouns, just the largest urban areas (note lowercase) in the United States. If you disagree with that assessment, I encourage you to create a template of the largest metropolitan areas in America. MojaveNC (talk) 05:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Why do you say that? Under what basis can you say that CSAs are a better match for urban areas than MSAs. How about we switch to actual urban areas which are independent of administrative boundaries? --Polaron | Talk 05:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I say that because both definitions clearly devalue certain cities' regional importance while at the same time overhyping others'. For example, using the MSA defintions, Riverside-San Bernardino is the 14th largest city in America. This clearly is overstating its place in the national business and social landscape. The Inland Empire is part of Los Angeles. Many of its residents work there, they watch their evening news from there, they attend baseball games there and often fly out of there. It's a clear case where a CSA is a better descriptor. Another example is the PIedmont Triad, which has about 1.5 million residents. Under the MSA definition, Greensboro has 670,000 people, Winston-Salem has 450,000 people and there's a couple hundred thousand dispersed about. This, despite the cities' center being just 28 miles apart and the edges of the suburbs being less than 10 miles apart. Using the urban areas definition, this region is also skewed – Greensboro reduced to just 267,000! A combined ranking of CSA and MSA represents the most accurate way of ranking the relative significance of America's cities. Using the city limits gives you skewed results such as San Antonio's 7th-place ranking; using the MSAs doesn't account for the close intertwinings of many megaplexes such as the Bay Area, Balto-Wash and Seattle-Tacoma; and urban areas also skews (i.e. Miami ranked fifth). MojaveNC (talk) 05:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

But Riverside is a distinct urban area. While the Los Angeles and Riverside areas are closely tied because they share suburbs, you can't deny the fact that Riverside is a strong employment attractor on its own. Using CSAs means that you are excluding certain large cities from standing alone. Who are we to decide when a CSA applied and when it does not. Are you saying that Boston and Providence belong to the same city? Providence is not a mere suburb but has its own metropolitan area. All a CSA means is that adjacent metro areas share suburbs. --Polaron | Talk 05:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Riverside is not its own distinct urban area, as any resident of the Inland Empire can attest. In this ranking, we are saying that the CSA is the BEST criteria, and when it's not available, an MSA is the best. I'm done discussing this at this point.MojaveNC (talk) 20:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.88.120.169 (talk) Reply[reply]

Again, who are we to determine why the CSA is the best here. Why is the MSA or urban area not good? Because you say so? How do you know Riverside is not a separate urban area? Have you checked the urban area data from the Census Bureau? Do you know better than the Census Bureau? If you read how CSAs are delineated, it is quite obvious that it involves multiple metropolitan areas. Let us not mislead people into thinking that CSAs are centered on a single urban area. --Polaron | Talk 22:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

CSAs absolutely are one single urban area! There's no arguing that San Francisco-San Jose, Baltimore-Washington, Los Angeles-Riverside, Seattle-Tacoma, the Piedmont Triad, et al, are not single urban areas! MojaveNC (talk) 07:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, they're not or they would have been MSAs rather than CSAs. By its very definition CSAs mesn they're composed of multiple CBSAs and a CBSA corresponds to the territory closely associated to anone urban area. Please try and look up how urban areas and MSAs and CSAs are delineated. --Polaron | Talk 12:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Riverside-San Bernardino Are not part of Los Angeles they are a total different area, Riverside-San Bernardino is its own Urban Area. House1090 (talk) 01:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Whoever protected this page, please can they surround the protection template with <noinclude> tags so that it doesn't appear when the template is actually included on a page? Kidburla2002 (talk) 11:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a dispute about whether Combined Statistical Areas make better ranking mechanisms for urban areas than Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

• Uninvolved Is there a reason why you cannot leave it out altogether? Is there a reason why you cannot do both?Aatomic1 (talk) 22:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Could an administrator change the link to Minneapolis-Saint Paul to show both of the Twin Cities (Saint Paul) and not just Minneapolis? The Twin Cities and how they are referred to are different than most urban areas in the United States. 70.57.146.73 (talk) 03:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The multi-city nature of the template seems to be the issue that caused the edit war in the first place, so I think a change like that should be discussed here first. Kafziel ^Talk 07:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Could this also apply to Virginia Beach-Norfolk as these are the primary cities in the area? I have rarely seen it as Virginia Beach and usually see it more as Norfolk or Virginia Beach-Norfolk. Chrisfortier (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes I did so with Riverside, it now reads, or should read Riverside-San Bernardino, because they are equaly equal, they both need credit (cities) House1090 (talk) 01:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Miami ranks below Philadelphia on this template, but above it on the 50 largest in the world? Which is correct??? -- SmthManly / ^ManlyTalk / ^{ManlyContribs} 02:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That makes no sence to only add 1 city per entry, some Metropolitan areas are runned by two cities, i.e. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Bernardino-Riverside, no one city is more important, they are equal there for they both should be credited. Also in some metros the largest city does not necessary take the credit as the metro capital/hub, as in the Inland Empire. Why cant we have two cities named where is the rule book, Polaron you need some one to agree with you, you dont set the rules. House1090 (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Here's where the Census Bureau settles the multiple core city issue: Any city that's at least 2/3rds the size of the larger city and is within a 20 minute drive of each other is considered a co-core city. Saint Pete, Saint Paul, Fort Worth and Oakland are all considered co-core cities. Satellite cities are considered cities in an area that are less than 2/3rds the size of the main city, are within a 20 minute drive of the core city(ies) and are considered to be important but not primary importance to a metro area. Tacoma, Bakersfield, Long Beach, Anaheim, Galveston, Bloomington, MN, Racine and Kansas City, KS are all satellite cities.

More people agree with me than with you as shown above. So I will revert you. House1090 (talk) 01:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If metro has 2 main cities, 2 may be added only if they have a population of + 200K House1090 (talk) 01:37, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a navigation template. We don't need full names. Compactness is important. If you really want to do this, do it uniformly for all and don't pick and choose. Your rule of 200000+ is even more arbitrary than using only the largest principal city. If you can add more names while making the template smaller than the single name version, you're free to try. If you can't make it more compact, then that doesn't help. --Polaron | Talk 01:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Look at the argument above, people agree with me, they were just afraid to act, but I'm not. This is about the Metropolitan areas, not the largest city of the 50 largest metropolitan areas, which would be useless. House1090 (talk) 01:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a navigation template where compactness is important. If this were the list of metro areas article you would have a point. Here, you have no basis for your arbitrary 200000 rule. --Polaron | Talk 02:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Polaron, you have no basis for your arbitrary inclusion of both Riverside and San Bernardino but not multiple cities in other metro areas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.99.66.59 (talk) 02:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Huh? Will you please make up your mind. --Polaron | Talk 02:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wait who is 74.99.66.59? House1090 (talk) 02:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Polarom Please dont write the whole MSA, but the principal city/cities. Like LA Metro revolves around Los Angeles ONLY, same for New York. While Dallas-Ft.Worth-Arlington revolves around D-FW. same for Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, revolves only around Riverside and San Bernardino. Get it? House1090 (talk) 03:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

See why it's better to just use the largest one? You don't like it when your arbitrary rule is applied to the entire list. These are official principal cities of the MSA with population over 200000. Either we follow your rule for the entire list (i.e. don't pick and choose which cities to apply your rule to) or just go back to the previous stable version. --Polaron | Talk 03:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You have edit warred with me and you have been blocked before because of this, back in June and I contacted an admin....By the way my way makes more sense. House1090 (talk) 03:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You have also edit warred too you know (it wouldn't be one without another party). . As I said, as long as you apply your rule uniformly for the entire list (and not arbitrarily choose cities to apply it to), then that should be acceptable. I guess that means this is the end of it, right? --Polaron | Talk 05:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, what I want is that the main citie recieve credit, not just one. Like Dallas-Ft. Worth, Riverside-San Bernardino, Minneapolis-St. Paul. Now what you did is added non principal cities only because their population was above 200K, I know that was my fault for saying add 200K + cities.I hope you can understand that a populaton of 200K does not make it a metros principal city. House1090 (talk) 05:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Why limit to those three? Why only them and not others? I hope you're not arbitrarily just choosing them without some kind of basis. You do know that each MSA has an official list of principal cities (cities that have more jobs than employed residents, i.e. these are not suburbs but employment centers), right? I've only listed those official principal cities (so that an official government agency already limits the cities for us) that are larger than 200,000 in population. --Polaron | Talk 06:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, what I am tring to do is list the metros principal cities/the one's that the metro is known for, not the satillite cities like Mesa, Arlington, Ontario, Long Beach, Santa Ana. Principal Cities should be named not the satillite cities. House1090 (talk) 22:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What I'm saying is that these are official principal cities of the associated MSAs. The agency that defines MSAs says they are principal cities. Maybe we should just go back to listing the largest principal city. --Polaron | Talk 22:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, we should list the 2 (if applicable;like SB-Riverside, SP-Minn., D-FW) cities the metro is known for. We should have locals edit the template, and then provide a reason for which why the two cities should be named. House1090 (talk) 01:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What makes those three special? Why only those three when other MSAs have secondary populous principal cities as well? You're applying an arbitrary rule to only a subset of entries. Just stick with the simple and more compact way of just listing one name and you won't have to argue at all as it is simple and easy for anyone to understand. After all, this template is mainly to be able to go to related articles and nothing more. It is the job of the linked articles to explain what the other principal cities in each metro area are. --Polaron | Talk 02:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay then, we will change it to 1 city per metro, but if a local contributer wants to add the secondary city they are welcome to, but we can only have the top 2 largest cities per metro. I think we can begin there, I will add the 2 largest city to Inland Empire Metropolitan Area spot, and if you want to add another secondary city the template go right ahead. House1090 (talk) 04:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Just fix Los Angeles and Dallas to have only two principal cities and the current version is fine then, isn't it? --Polaron | Talk 06:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I dont see the fix??I think we should do it all 1 city, then add the secondary city, IF NEED, leaving it to locals. House1090 (talk) 22:13, 7 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The page is protected so you would have to wait until the protection expires in a few days. In any case, using a single name makes the template more compact, and compactness is something that is important in a navigation template (see Wikipedia:Navigation templates for guidance). Also, using a single name rule is much simpler to implement as it doesn't require editors to have to look up individual populations and also not to have to think about whether to apply the rule to this city but not to that city.

Since your particular interest is in the Inland Empire, you can use "Inland Empire" as the single name instead of "Riverside-San Bernardino" so that you have a single, common name that refers to both places at the same time. Since that is also the target article name, that makes sense as well. --Polaron | Talk 00:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No because Inland EMpire is not a city. House1090 (talk) 03:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a navigation template for metropolitan area articles. This is not a list of cities per se. It so happens that metropolitan areas are often called by the name of the core city. --Polaron | Talk 05:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not always true, sometimes metros have two core cities, and called by both cities. House1090 (talk) 02:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have added Norfolk to the Virginia Beach entry. I live in the region and no one ever calls it by Virginia Beach alone. If one word is used, it is Norfolk. However, since Virginia Beach is larger in population than Norfolk, a unique situation exists here where a suburb (Va Beach pop. 430,000) is actually larger than the region's urban center (Norfolk pop. 235,000), which explains why you listed only Virginia Beach. As a resident, I can tell you the vast majority would label it Norfolk-Virginia Beach as I have. --Conk 9 (talk) 19:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And thank you for allowing locals to have the choice of one vs. two principal cities. It seems to have worked out well as the only dual cities listed now are those that most of us would deem appropriate as dual title holders (Riverside-San B; SF-Oakland; Dallas-FW; Mpls-St Paul; Tampa-St Pete; and now Norfolk-VaBeach)--Conk 9 (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your welcome, it was a big fight, and it took me a while but it was worth it. House1090 (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Most metro areas fluctuate as per definition of the census department. As rar as anyone knows, San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA is currently co-terminous with the County boundaries. To allow for changing definition, I tried to define the redirect "San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA", soon to be an article, as the name, but was prevented by template standards from doing so. Future editors please take note and change when article is defined or boundaries change. Student7 (talk) 15:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dont worry I am starting a new San Diego Metropolitan Area article soon, and I will personally make the changes. House1090 (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

For some of the metro areas, it might be more appropriate to use its common name rather than the name of the principal cities. For example, Inland Empire (also the name of the linked article) instead of Riverside-San Bernardino, South Florida (again the article name) instead of Miami (especially since the MSA is built around the county seats instead of only Miami), Silicon Valley for San Jose, and Tampa Bay Area (instead of Tampa-St Pete).CGrapes429 (talk) 03:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think it should be shrunk to 50, 100 seems too much. The template looks too full and congested in my opinion. House1090 (talk) 08:22, 9 February 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Agreed, barring any other discussion I am thinking of changing this back. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 19:06, 21 May 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]