Talk:Connersville, Indiana

Article
This article is ripe with unnatural sentences and grammar mistakes. Whoever added all this uncited information needs to correct what they wrote, then go back and properly cite all of their additions; or it will be removed after discussion per Wikipedia standards. chris4682 Oct 07

This article has been reviewed by a professional editor. Its sentence structure and grammar are consistent with Wikipedia standards. Citation is also consistent with Wikipedia standards. It remains, of course, subject to the additions and deletions of users. msariel Feb 08

OK, let's talk about "non-notable" people. Danielle Sloan's entry was deleted, but a couple of other people whose claims to fame equal hers were not deleted. Not naming names here, just talking about the underlying principle: either all of them are non-notables, or Danielle and some of the others should stay. Writer130 (talk) 00:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems like some of you take this way too seriously. The important thing is that the information is factual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.0.223.151 (talk) 13:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleted non famous people
Certain individuals keep posting information of themselves on this page (e.g., "DJ OHMYGODRUNTHERESABEARBEHINDYOU"), including some of which included inappropriate materials. Please, keep this page clean. If they don't have a Wikipedia page, they don't qualify for a spot on a 'Notable People" section of a city. Please refer to Wikipedia policy. Chaseeversole (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2011 (EST)

Here we go again: fluoridation debate in wikipedia?
I've added an editorializing tag to additional fluoridation text in History section. In such contentious matters, we adhere to the policy of stating only bare-bones facts in a neutral factual encyclopedia article. The necessary facts are 1)there was an epidemic of dental caries in the city in the years prior to 2000; 2) there was an acrimonious debate as to cause and remedy; 3)in 2000, the city got fluoridated water. What they were or were not told is our (editors) opinion as to what should or should not have been told.  It is debatable whether such text should appear in the encyclopedia at all, but if it does, it should be  moved to one of the fluoridation articles like History of water fluoridation.Sbalfour (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

The paragraph has been moved or removed - issue closed. Sbalfour (talk) 15:14, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

List of churches maybe too detailed
I'm having second thoughts about listing dozens of churches individually, with the concommitant responsibility to keep the list updated. Filling an article with lists of lists isn't good use of space. Consider what the task would be if the city were New York City. I'm thinking about condensing the text to just list the denominations represented, and some phrase like "and numerous non-denominational christian churches". The Wiki isn't an almanac WP:Almanac. The same consideration might reasonably apply to the schools listing (but it's a lot shorter and more readable).Sbalfour (talk) 21:38, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Bankruptcy?
In the period 2011-2014, Connersville tottered on the verge of bankruptcy, and remains so today, though a little less so, In fact, in 2011, the mayor publicly declared that the city was bankrupt, though no legal filing was made. The whole county and regional area are similarly impacted.East central Indiana is one of the poorest regions of the country outside Appalachia. I don't know how this situation on the ground can be properly inserted into the History text, as most of it was sparsely reported on (nobody wants to talk about it). I was there and I remember it. Sbalfour (talk) 21:34, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Restoring lost text
Various people, mostly unregistered IP addresses and hit-and-run editors (those who don't have a continuing interest in advancing the article), have deleted bits and pieces of text from the article. The pieces are accurate by my assessment, though some are unsourced (as is about 50% of text in the encyclopedia generally). So I'm going back to a version of the article from Aug. 2015 to retrieve and restore the lost text. We can't make progress by deleting things. If you have a contribution to make, add something, or source something, and leave other editors' work intact. If you challenge something as inaccurate, the established procedure is to tag it, possibly as [cn], "citation needed", then open a talk page discussion to get other editors' input. After consensus is reached, then you or some other editor can make an appropriate change to the article. Arbitrary deletions, except in cases of vandalism or blatant inaccuracy, are heavily discouraged by policy. Sbalfour (talk) 16:27, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The situation in Connersville
The history of Connersville has been one of labor versus industry and geophysical centrism and non-centrism. In the early days, Connersville's central location on an established Indian trail along the only significant river in eastern Indiana, midway between the Ohio river and Indian villages to the north of what is now Indianapolis, with the vast Northwest Territory beyond, ideally positioned the city as a waystation in the wilderness. Colonization follows rivers, and the city was of course platted on the river. Early industrial expansion brought the railroad to move colonists rapidly into the northwest from Cincinnati, and Connersville was the central terminus of the railroad.

But post-industrial revolution, with the rise of US and interstate highways and airports, Connersville's 'gateway on the river' geophysical position became moot. The National Road (US 40) stretched in a beeline between the fortuitously positioned cities of Richmond and Indianapolis, bypassing Connersville to the north. Cincinnati and Indianapolis acquired airports in the 1920's. Interstate 70 had even bigger goals: it stretched between the metropolises of Indianapolis and Columbus, OH in the 1950's again bypassing Connersville even further to the north. Connersville's automotive heyday occurred partly because in those days, the fuel cost of transportation to distant markets in Cincinnati and elsewhere was insignificant. But today, it's not. Connersville became an isolated rural and chiefly agricultural community.

Industry returned in the 1950's chiefly because labor was cheap and plentiful - after having burgeoned on automobiles, the town was idle when that industry moved east to Detroit. The town reached its pinnacle of expansion, population, economic output, housing sales, government revenue, school enrollment, etc in 1965. Then labor decided it wanted a bigger slice of the pie. Connersville was an old guard 100% union town. One might even say that unions got their start in the automotive days centered in Connersville. For a while, they got that slice. But they couldn't let go and compromise when consolidation hit the industrial base in the 70's. America's industrial base, and unionism that supported it, hit hard times with increasing foreign competition and non-union production in the 1980's. The heyday of big labor in the 50's and 60's was over. Industry collapsed and Connersville along with it as business moved to cheaper non-union places like Arkansas.

The situation today is that property values have sunk so low, and business profits are so thin, that local taxes cannot support the municipal infrastructure. For example, Connersville needs a federal grant to repair its downtown sidewalks. The last time Connersville had a population less than or equal to today's was 1930! But since then, there are more roads, more sidewalks, more buildings, more water treatment plants and power generation stations, and etc to maintain. Figuratively, one might say that if we didn't have it and couldn't support it in 1930, we can't afford it today. Connersville escaped bankruptcy in 2014 by the skin of its teeth. There's been an almost straight line decline in economic productivity from 1965 to 2014, continuing to today. Connersville's unfavorable geophysical position in the the middle of nowhere (i.e. a vast and vastly poor rural area comprising nearly 15% of the state), along with the decline in available labor due to attrition and aging of the population, make it infeasible for heavy industry to return to Connersville. Just one poignant example: when I attend church on Sunday morning, I see hardly any young families with young kids - it's mostly seniors. I remember in 1965, church overflowing with kids (I was one), so that if we didn't arrive early, we'd have to stand at the rear of the church for mass.

A lot of this is editorializing, and unsuitable for a scholarly factual article, but it's the flavor of what the town has been.

Sbalfour (talk) 17:57, 27 November 2018 (UTC)