Talk:History of Los Angeles

Population history
The dates and populations before 1850 don't seem to match the cited source, "Historical Resident Population of Los Angeles during the Spanish & Mexican Period, 1781 to 1840." The source lists a population of "about 315" in 1790, which doesn't match the table, and it doesn't list populations for any of the other years in the table. It does give populations for several years that aren't in the table: 44 in 1781, 2230 in 1836, and 2497 in 1844. Those populations seems consistent with the ones in the table, but they can't be compared directly, and I can't tell where the populations in the table are coming from. The source page isn't archived; could it have changed since the table was written? Vectornaut (talk) 22:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Why is the 1850 population missing from the table? It's listed in the source cited, "Historical Census Populations of Counties and Incorporated Cities in California, 1850–2010." Vectornaut (talk) 22:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose to merge Modern history of Los Angeles and Early history of Los Angeles, California into one page: History of Los Angeles. There is absolutely no need to narrow the scope of this topic and separate it into two articles in article to "modern history". All major cities have single history articles (in the format of "History of [City name]) covering all of their history across all ages. This article should be moved to give Los Angeles an article to do exactly that: an encompassing history from the foundation of the city to the modern age as well as the indigenous history of the site prior to the arrival of the Spanish. This is a precedent not just in Californian cities (History of San Francisco, History of San Diego, and so on), but across American cities (History of New York City, History of Chicago, etc) and major cities across the world (History of Lisbon, History of Mexico City, History of Sydney, etc). There is no good reason for Los Angeles to be any different. The only reason this problem exists is because User:BeenAroundAWhile did a WP:split of the original "History of Los Angeles" article into the two halves we have now, without any discussion, consensus, or regard for established norm on city history articles across Wikipedia. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 00:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The former version was much too long. Take a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_history_of_Los_Angeles&oldid=1016911085. The historical division at the point when Los Angeles stopped belonging to Mexico and became an American city is a logical one. Los Angeles still has a lot of history ahead of it, so we have to have an article that can be lengthened to fit. As for the other cities mentioned above, they are all nice places to visit and even to live, but they are not Los Angeles, so I am not sure why they should concern us. Best wishes, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:39, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Previous to the split, there was a tag at the top of the page which said: "This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. The readable prose size is 83 kilobytes. Please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (December 2016)." Yours, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Since there had been no discussion for more than five years, I split the article. I'm sure everyone is familiar with WP:Bold. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Support:  I think merging would be appropriate here. "Early History" is not that long and honestly there is probably some streamlining that could occur with "Modern History" such that concerns regarding length could be addressed through that process.  A merge makes sense to me. DocFreeman24 (talk) 06:09, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Support If an article covering the History of Paris can cover everything from prehistory to modern space (of which there is vastly more historiography on compared to LA), then we can fit all of Los Angeles history into one article. Sounds like the solution should have been to trim superfluous info to fit everything in one article. It is also completely ludicrous to assume LA, unlike any other major city on Wiki, has so much history it merits two articles. I mean LA has only existed as a city since the 1770's, compared to the thousands of years old cities of Athens or Mumbai, or even cities with centuries more of settled, modern history like New York City or Rio de Janeiro. Not to mention that arbitrarily choosing the Conquest of California as the division between early and modern history reeks of WP:Original research, no matter how logical it may seem to you (it doesn't at all to me). Tons of sections can be shortened (as this is an overall history article there shouldn't be such a great focus on individual topics), such as "Populism", "Water from a Distance", "Civic corruption and police brutality", and so many more. Take this excerpt from the section Postwar - Baby Boomers: "Popular music of the period bore titles such as "California Girls", "California Dreamin'", "San Francisco", "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" and "Hotel California". These reflected the Californian promise of easy living in a paradisiacal climate. The surfing culture burgeoned." Talk about superfluous. The problem here is the quantity of unnecessary info, not of needing two separate articles. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 18:29, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If User:Cristiano Tomás wants to provide a slimmed-down version, I would be glad to work with him on something acceptable to all. How about putting a suggested version in a WP:sandbox so we can see what it would look like? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 21:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * My first priority is the article merger. After we have a reconstituted History of Los Angeles, I would be happy to work with User:BeenAroundAWhile on trimming the excess from the article. That being said, I will already start taking a deep look at which sections can be reduced, restructured, or consolidated. Best, Cristiano Tomás (talk) 21:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to merging first and chopping later if it is that important to my esteemed friend. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)