Talk:Davenport, Iowa

Comments
It's a shame the article didn't make it at FAC, but I think it would help next time round if these points were addressed. Nev1 (talk) 17:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC) I love my home town, but the white wash is annoying.--69.243.132.29 (talk) 20:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there nothing in the native Americans, even as little as when it's thought they first colonised the area?
 * Did the steamboat captain deliberately crash his boat into the bridge?
 * Something on the impact of the railway needs to be mentioned. Completed in 1856, it coincides with a 6-fold increase in population between 1850 and 1860 (and 11-fold by 1870), so unless there was another factor in this increase it was clearly important. How did this affect the economy, did it fuel industry?
 * "Davenport experienced a post-war boom after World War II": slightly repetitious, would "Davenport experienced a boom after World War II" suffice?
 * "Oscar Mayer, Ralston Purina, and other companies all built plants in west Davenport": is "all" necessary?
 * "Davenport is believed to be protected from tornadoes by a blessing from a "mass mound", similar to an altar": "is believed" is a bit vague (believed by whom?), perhaps it would be better to say "According to local legend, Davenport is protected…"
 * The first paragraph of the neighborhoods section is repetitious and in a short, three-line paragraph the word "neighborhoods" is used four times.
 * "The city can be divided into five areas for neighborhoods": that's an odd phrase, is it meant that there are five neighborhoods? Also, unless Downtown is a proper noun, it doesn't need to be capitalised after the colon.
 * The third paragraph of the geography section, where it talks about German settlers, should be merged with the first paragraph as it too mentions German settlers.
 * Camp McClellan should probably be wikilinked, and is there any particular reason that the history section doesn't mention that Davenport was used to parade soldiers in the Civil War?
 * Currently it links to a different Fort McClellan C T J F 8 3  chat 20:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * "The park was modeled after New York City's Central Park and was originally named Central Park": that's a bit repetitious, how about something like "The park was modeled after New York City's Central Park and originally shared its name"?
 * The demographics section could do with a little more detail to put the information in context. For example, how did Davenport's ethnic make-up compare to the regional and national figures? Were there any particularly unusual statistics? The average reader won't know if it's unusual that 46.0% of households included married couples unless you tell them. Also, given that it's mentioned that "For every 100 females there were 94.7 males" what does "For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.9 males" add? It's repetitious; too many statistics will bore the reader, so unless the difference of 3.8 males to every female is significant, I recommend dropping the second sentence.
 * Why is information such as the average household income and average house price in the demographics section rather than under economy?
 * The economy section could do with some statistics (if available) on the proportion of people who are in full-time employment, part-time, and who are self-employed (at the moment only figures for the unemployed are given). It would be ideal if these could be then compared with regional and national trends to give the reader a fuller picture of the economic side of Davenport.
 * Perhaps the points of interest section should be changed to a more neutral title such as "landmarks" (what might be of interest to some will bore others).
 * "Brady Street Stadium is home to Davenport high school football games as well as football games for Saint Ambrose University": repetition of "football games".
 * "The annual Bix 7 road race is a 7-mile (11 km) long race held in late July in Davenport": repetition of race, is there any way round this?
 * "The first race had 84 runners.[52] Today the race is often run by 12,000 to 18,000 runners": these two sentences are short and could be merged, how about something like "The first race had 84 runners, but today between 12,000 and 18,000 people take part" which avoids using "runners" twice in quick succession?
 * This whole page reads like a sales brochure to get people to move to Davenport. What's with the emphasis on the crime rate dropping? I don't see that in other cities. And how can you have a section dedicated to crime and not talk about the horrible problem with meth? Or how about this site that rates cities that says Davenport has the highest crime rate of any city in Iowa? http://www.homesurfer.com/crimereports/view/crime_report.cfm?state=IA&area=Davenport
 * So fix it. As far as the crime rate, note the following WP:FAs with crime sections Washington,_D.C., Boston, Cleveland, Detroit.  C T J F 8 3  chat 21:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The page states that there are 2 universities in Davenport, but one institution that is cited, the Palmer College of Chiropractic, both styles itself a college, and is not claimed, in the wikipedia page which features it, to be a university.

African Americans in Davenport, Iowa
The African Americans in Davenport, Iowa article is currently up for AfD. In reviewing the Davenport, Iowa article, it appears that it lacks a discussion of race relations and of Bix Biederbecke and the local jazz scene. Would it be possible to incorporate material from that article into this one to present a comprehensive article covering both "black" and "white" Davenport? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 14:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll have to see what I can add. C T J F 8 3  chat 18:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Some commentary on sourcing
Need citations for (not a comprehensive list): Other comments (again, not a complete list):
 * The skyline began forming in the 1920s with the building of the Kahl Building, the Parker Building, and the Capitol Theatre during an economic and building expansion
 * In recent years, many renovations and building additions have occurred to revitalize the downtown area, including repairing Modern Woodmen Park, the building of the Skybridge and the Figge Art Museum.
 * Davenport is located approximately 170 miles (270 km) west of Chicago and 170 miles (270 km) east of the Iowa state capital of Des Moines. The city is located about 200 miles (320 km) north of St. Louis, Missouri, and 265 miles (426 km) southeast of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Farmland surrounds Davenport, outside the Quad Cities area.
 * During the last half of the nineteenth century, government assumed expanding responsibilities for public welfare and public works improvements.
 * At the federal level, Davenport is in Iowa's 1st congressional district and as of 2011, is represented by Democrat Bruce Braley. The two Senators are Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Tom Harkin. At the state level, Davenport is represented by the forty-first, forty-second, and forty-third Iowa Senate districts and in the Iowa House of Representatives by the eighty-first, eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth, and eighty-sixth districts.
 * Both are represented by Democrats with Jim Lykam representing the eighty-fifth and Cindy Winckler representing the eighty-sixth.
 * The per capita income for the city was $18,828. About 10.5% of families and 14.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.2% of those under age 18 and 6.4% of those ages 65 or over.
 * 2009 was the 39th consecutive festival
 * For air travel, Davenport Municipal Airport – located adjacent to the city's northern city limits – serves smaller aircraft, and is the home of the annual Quad City Airshow. The Quad City International Airport across the river in Moline, Illinois, is the closest commercial airport.
 * What kind of source is Fetzer? Needs publisher, depending on type likely needs page number
 * Quad-City or Quad City Times? Italicized or not?
 * Ref 37 fmt
 * Need pages for multi-page PDFs and all books
 * Need dates for news articles. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I will work on these. C T J F 8 3  20:06, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Review
Here is the start of my review, as if this were at FAC. I weighed in on the last FAC and am somewhat surprised to see that the points raised there seem not have already been addressed. I would look carefully at all three FACs and see what actionable requests have not yet been addressed and do my best to address them (or get someone's help to do so). I would also look at WP:WIAFA That's a start. Once the other issues are fixed, I would get a copy edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruhrfisch (talk • contribs) 04:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * A professional level of English is an FAC criterion, but looking at just my comments in the third FAC, the prose in the lead is still not great. There are four sentences in the first two paragraphs of the lead that begin "Davenport is" (3 in the first paragraph and a "Davenport was" sentence is there too).
 * Suggestions I made in the last FAC to start to fix some of these very issues have not been acted on - I am not saying they all have to be changed exatly as I suggest, but there appears to have been relatively little change made to any of the points raised.
 * The first and second sentences of the lead could be combined (getting rid of one "Davenport is" construction)
 * The third sentence could be switched to active voice avoiding "Davenport was..." (and in general if passive can be avoided, it is a good idea to do so)
 * The last two sentences of the first paragraph could be combined somehow, so the phrase Quad Cities need not be used twice in two sentences
 * I would link Iowa in the lead, but there is still a lot of WP:OVERLINKing - Illinois and Mississippi River are still linked twice in just the lead! This is an easy fix.
 * I still worry about issues of comprehensiveness (an FAC criterion too) - there is nothing on the Native Americans who lived in the area that became Davenport before the US bought it and before the city was founded. Given what I know of the Black Hawk War, it seems like there had to have been natives in the area.
 * The many listings in the city on the NRHP are still not mentioned that I can see, even if only a See also link
 * I looked at all three FACs and there have been repeated requests to include more on the history of minorities in the city - there is a See also link to African Americans in Davenport, Iowa, which has its own problems, but does list quite a few references that seem like they could be used to add something here.
 * There are several places which need references but do not have them - the first paragraph in Landmarks for example.
 * Ok, thank you! C T J F 8 3  11:41, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

A model article is often useful for ideas and examples to follow. I am a co-nom on the FA for Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, which is an FA and may be a useful model deserves all the credit for the article). While Lock Haven is much smaller city, it is on land once occupied by Native Americans, is a county seat and on a major river, has suffered periodic floods, has a university, and has enough similarities that I thought it might at least be worth looking at.

One of the main things I noticed when comparing the two articles was how much more detailed the History section is in the Lock Haven article. When I look at Davenport's article, I see the population went up enormously between 1850 and 1860, but when I read the History section, I do not get a clear idea why this happened. Was it the railroads? The river traffic? Westward expansion of the US in general? Another thing I noticed comparing the two articles was the relative lack of books used as sources on Davenport. Given the large number of NRHP listed properties in the city, and the fact that the listings seem to be available online like this one for the Blackhawk Hotel, I wonder if looking at the NRHP forms might give some more sources? The one I linked to has another book by Svendsen ("Where the River Runs West") listed, which is apprently not listed in the sources used here.

I also note there is not much on the Geology of the city. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 03:09, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

"Frequent" Flooding?
I looked up historical flood levels at lock & dam 15 since 1990 and the river has gone over flood stage (15 feet) 20 out of 255 months, or 7% of all months. Does this really qualify as frequent? Also, as anyone who lives there know, the flooding only affects a small portion of downtown & a small section in the West End. Banderson1962 (talk) 05:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right on that...but how many years has there been flooding, seems like nearly every year or two there is some flooding. Also there are frequent problems with Duck Creek flooding....I'm certainly open to changing the word "frequent". Can you please provide me a link to the dam flooding list? C T J F 8 3  16:16, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure: http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/WaterControl/stationinfo2.cfm?sid=MI15&fid=RCKI2&dt=S
 * There's a blue box on the right, use 'Tabulate (yearly formatted)' and play with it from there. I counted the months in my head so I may have been off by 1 or 2...
 * Banderson1962 (talk) 23:34, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe you, I just wanted to see what kind of info it had....what do you propose it say instead of frequent flooding? C T J F 8 3  23:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keeping in mind I'm not an English major, something like "Being the largest city on the Mississippi river with out a floodwall, annual discussions arise over flood protection, even though most floods affect only a small portion of the city." Banderson1962 (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that for the lead paragraph or for Davenport,_Iowa? Also, keep in mind since I'm working to get this to WP:FA status, everything needs a source. Are there discussions every year, or just years where flooding is imminent? I don't really read the paper or watch the local news. I would agree it only affects a small portion, ie just downtown and the southwest part. I appreciate your input! C T J F 8 3  21:57, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Extremely unclear wording
I'm having a hard time figuring out what this is supposed to mean: "Contrary to Iowa, only whites have a higher percent in Davenport, than in the United States as a whole." Against the current (talk) 17:23, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing it out. It's suppose to say Davenport has a higher minority rate than the state of Iowa and even most or all of the cities. However, it has less minority population then the United States. Although probably more than you care about, I made a table:



!Locale !White !Black !Asian !Hispanic
 * Davenport
 * 83.7
 * 9.2
 * 2.0
 * 5.4
 * Iowa
 * 91.8
 * 2.8
 * 1.7
 * 4.8
 * USA
 * 72.4
 * 12.6
 * 4.8
 * 16.3
 * }
 * 4.8
 * 16.3
 * }


 * I changed the article to:


 * All races in Davenport, except for white are at a higher percent then the rest of Iowa, but lower than the United States. Whites in Davenport, however, are lower than the Iowa average, but higher than the rest of the United States


 * It's clearier, but perhaps not worded 100%. C T F 8 3 !  04:41, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Palmer Chiro College, a university?
The article states that in Davenport "[t]here are two main universities: Saint Ambrose University and Palmer College of Chiropractic[...]."

Going from its name, I would suspect that Palmer Chiropractic College is not a university, but in fact... a chiropractic college. Could this statement in the article be verified or revised?

- 2warped@gmail.com 68.36.147.128 (talk) 02:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Picture formatting
Hi! Could someone format the pictures so that they do not create several lines of extra whitespace. Thanks! BroncoHawk (talk) 08:49, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Issues with article
This 2008 GA has lots of uncited material, especially in the History and Infrastructure sections, while much of the article is woefully out of date, with information from 2008-12 being used as "current" (see e.g. the Government section). If these issues aren't fixed, a GAR may be necessary. &#126;~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:01, 24 May 2024 (UTC)