Talk:Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

gov't
Needs update for recent governmental changes-FZ 02:17, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Allegwi
Allegwi also known as Allegans and were not there anymore by the time Columbus discovered America. Iroquois replaced them. Will cite as soon as I fiqure out how to format it. Also starting the linking page soon.Deedee19482 22:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Unincorporated areas
We need a section to list areas like Wexford which are commonly referred to but do not serve as census designated places, but instead contain smaller parts of other census designated places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.246.27 (talk • contribs) 13:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

McCandless
While I agree that the name is The Town of McCandless, it does not seem to legally be a town under PA law. See here on page 6-62, where it reads "Bloomsburg is the only incorporated town in Pa." Furthermore, it lists the Town of McCandless with the townships (page 6-77). Please note there are three borougsh that also incorporate the name town (Elizabethtown, Norristown (OK, it is a former borough), and Pottstown). There are also over a dozen boroughs named "City" (Ellwood City, for example) but no one is arguing they are cities under PA law. Ruhrfisch 02:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

McCandless and other municipalities
The Town of McCandless was the name adopted with their Home Rule Charter (http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/302/chapter23/chap23toc.html). It was originally a township, but home rule communities can adopt other names. Many use "municipality of" (Monroeville) but some retain their original title, such as Hampton Township.--ProfessorWonk (talk) 02:42, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Prominent Residents?
I think the heading "Prominent Residents" is misleading. Actually, it should be "Prominent Natives and Residents" for Allegheny County (I made that change in the article), since a resident is reasonably construed as someone who currently resides there -- unless it says "Past Residents."

In the case of articles for individual municipalities, I'm confident that anyone prominent who came out of any of those little farm and steel towns did not remain a resident past high school. Thus, the heading there should be "Prominent Natives."

Finally, if there's a heading in the county article for prominent natives, would it not be necessary to collect that information from the articles for all the municipalities (including Pittsburgh) and include it? Seems like a formidable task that probably isn't very important at the county level.

As for me, I was born and raised in Clairton and had a history with Westinghouse, so I've been reviewing articles on those topics.

NameThatWorks 18:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry to be slow in responding. I looked and WikiProject Cities lists it as "Notable Natives", while the US Counties WikiProject does not mention the topic. I think notable is a better adjective as notability is the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia. Either Natives or Residents seems OK to me, but to be consistent with other articles, perhaps Natives is best. I will also post this on your talk page. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 03:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Notable natives and residents
I thought it was pretty much decided not to include this category at the county level, but to list these folks in their respective municipal articles. It seems the list is growing, but most of them should be in the Pittsburgh article. Otherwise, notable natives and residents from all the cities and towns in the county should be repeated here. --NameThatWorks 21:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of "Allegheny", the Allegewi, and early natives
The History section began with this paragraph:

''Prior to it being settled by Europeans, the county was mostly wilderness and uninhabited except for wandering Indians such as the Iroquois, who were the largest tribe in the area. The Allegheny River, Mountains, and County obtained their name from an ancient tribe,  the  Allegwi. They were the Alleghen Indians who inhabited the region before the 13th century.''

Problems with this text include the connotations of the land being uninhabited wilderness except for "wandering" natives like the Iroquois. The idea of pre-Columbian America being an empty wilderness but for a few wandering savages sounds like something from the 19th century. And anyway, the Iroquois were an agricultural people, not "wanderers". Also, both "Allegwi" and "Alleghen" are linked to Native Americans in the United States, a page which mentions neither word. So I just rewrote the paragraph with a reference that describes the origin of the word "Allegheny". In this book, the story of the Allegewi is rather bluntly discounted as a myth, and that "Allegheny" probably means "fine river". I tried to phrase this in a slightly less firm tone. In any case, the county was named for the river, not for the ancient tribe directly.

But since the history section should have something on the native peoples, I added a paragraph on it -- but there isn't a lot to say, it seems to me. Certainly more could be said about the natives during the European colonial period. Pfly (talk) 04:53, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I think the Allegewi story comes from the Walam Olum. Not the most trusted of sources. Pfly (talk) 04:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

largest inland port
Laredo, Texas claims to be the largest inland port, and has a reference for it, and the claim in this article is unreferenced —Preceding unsigned comment added by Langhorner (talk • contribs) 13:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Wilkins Township
I noticed Wilkins Township is shaded in blue on the one map that shows all the boroughs and townships. According to the legend blue means that area is a CDP. Is Wilkins Township a concurrent township and CDP like Penn Hills? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmantra (talk • contribs) 04:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

WHERE are the unincorporated communities?????
We have a cat for unincorporated communities, thats swell, HOWEVER, the template does not reflect them at all. WHAT am I missingCoal town guy (talk) 12:53, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * found edit that crippled template. Saved to version before the edit. Template now displays footnotes and unincorporated communitiesCoal town guy (talk) 14:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

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Row officers
Are all the row officers elected?--Dthomsen8 (talk) 02:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Need to resolve discrepancies in lists of communities
Under the subheading "Communities", the entities are listed under the official designations according to Pennsylvania state law. However, the list in the table "Population ranking" uses terms that take into account how an entity is described in its home rule charter if it has one. I.e., Bethel Park is a borough according to state law, but its home rule charter states that it is a municipality. The differences that this creates in how an entity is governed can be complex, and is different for every entity that has a home rule charter. (There is no standard for the changes a charter specifies in local government.) There are also entities that have optional charters or plans filed, which allow them to adopt a home rule charter in the future, but these would not change their designation with the state government.

For reference, consult the following Wikipedia entries (most of these are tables that can be sorted by county):
 * List of cities in Pennsylvania
 * List of towns and boroughs in Pennsylvania
 * List of townships in Pennsylvania
 * Category: Townships in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (much easier to use as a list than the previous page)
 * List of Pennsylvania municipalities and counties with home rule charters or optional charters/plans
 * List of municipalities in Pennsylvania

If there is a reason for the table using the different labels, then there should be an explanation above the table about what the differences reflect. If there isn't a reason, then the lists should be either reconciled, or the information combined so that there is only one list. That would ease making future updates to the list(s). Since I don't know the history behind the original content, I don't want to make such a (possibly) radical change myself. --KLinch (talk) 21:18, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Population Ranking
Population ranking is missing all townships, including many big ones Upper St Clair, Baldwin Township — Preceding unsigned comment added by Draniac (talk • contribs) 12:11, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Missing Townships
Bumping this. I noticed Scott Township missing but Draniac is right about all of them. Any idea where this data came from? Ieverhart (talk) 19:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:39, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Tree Map of Employment by Occupations in Allegheny County, Pa (2015).svg