Talk:Neighborhoods in Saint Paul, Minnesota

This article needs much clean up
The Saint Paul Neighborhoods article seems to read more like a travel brochure filled with personal anecdotes than an encyclopedic article. While the various authors of the article are clearly very proud of Saint Paul, we must strive to be factual, employ critical thinking, and avoid unsubstantiated and subjective commentary within the article. I have marked several places in the article that need citations. While this may appear as an attack on the article itself, I do think that the framework of the content is very solid. It is the wording of the article itself in many cases that needs to be refined.

Here are a few examples of problems within the article:


 * the opening statement reads "Saint Paul, Minnesota is noted for its neighborhoods. The city has been called "fifteen small towns with one mayor", owing to the neighborhood-based life of much of the city. Saint Paul is partially governed by not fifteen but seventeen City Districts. Some City District boundaries overlap well-recognized neighborhoods."

In parsing this statement, several questions arise. By whom is Saint Paul noted for its neighborhoods? Is this not true of most major cities? Who called the city "fifteen small towns with one mayor"? We should not include this without referencing a source. Why are we pointing out "not fifteen but seventeen" when counting districts? What makes a neighborhood well-recognized, or historic? What is neighborhood-based life?


 * When listing demographics for neighborhoods, we should not use unquantifiable terms such as blue-collar, middle-class, well-to-do, or wealthy. If we really wanted to point out the distribution of wealth throughout the city then we should do so with facts and figures, not rhetorical phrases.

spleebo (talk) 05:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Speaking of rhetoric, this article is filled with it. Calling downtown a "ghost town" is not encyclopedic. Neither is making generalizations like "massive problems with drugs and prostitution". Wikipedia expects a tone that is slightly less formal than a textbook, but more formal than a conversational tone. This article should really be rewritten in such a way that the snippets of history and life in Saint Paul can be related in an objective an encyclopedic manner. It is perfectly acceptable to include details of crime and nightlife, so long as those details are presented without opinion and in a manner that can be (and are) fully substantiated. Anecdotes and stories should be treated as quotations, always citing their source.


 * I agree. You should fix it.--Appraiser (talk) 13:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Appraiser. I'm picking away at it as time permits. The comments above were added to both explain my changes and keep things from getting worse. spleebo (talk) 21:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Whoa I would prefer editors do not slap as many tags willy nilly on the page without performing some major edits themselves in good faith. .:davumaya:. 18:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I apologize for my response above. I was being snarky. Red link? - really? I should write an article.--Appraiser (talk) 19:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Are these really neighborhoods?
The seventeen areas listed as neighborhoods are the city's planning districts, rather than neighborhoods defined in a traditional or sociological sense, and the planning districts in many cases don't line up with the neighborhoods as they would be defined by residents.

You can see some of the problems with using the planning districts as "neighborhoods" in the descriptions of several areas in the article. For example, the article places Concordia University in the Midway neighborhood. However, if the planning districts are being used to define "neighborhoods" then Concordia is properly placed in Merriam Park/Lex-Ham neighborhood (District 13). (Here's a map of the planning districts from the city's Department of Planning and Economic Development -- http://www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/maps/citymap2.html.)

A second example is the "Greater East Side" area. This is not a generally used description for the northeast corner of the city. Look at the list of neighborhoods that's been added under the Greater East Side heading. This list includes some neighborhoods that are actually in District 2 (the Greater East Side), but it also includes neighborhoods found in other "East Side" planning districts including Dayton's Bluff (District 4), Payne-Phalen (District 5) and Sunray-Battle Creek-Highwood (District 1) This reflects the more common usage of the "East Side" descriptior in the city. If you have a look at the District 2 Planning Council website, at http://www.district2council.org/, you'll see that they don't refer to themselves as the Greater East Side, but list the neighborhoods included in the planning district.

In some cases the planning district boundaries line up better with the generally accepted names for particular parts of the city. This is the case, for example in the Highland Park area. As a rule, however, the planning districts don't seem adequate for capturing the neighborhoods as they would be identified by residents of the city. 204.77.41.93 23:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

East Side
For those interested, East Side, St. Paul, Minnesota is up for AfD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Appraiser (talk • contribs) 15:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * lol lets work on Saint Paul before we get to East Side mmm kay. .:davumaya:. 19:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Maps
This article is wanting of some maps. Is this on anyone's plate? Minneapolis has one--though it wouldn't be hard to do even better than that. Would really help the reader efficiently get some perspective. Fernweh.us (talk) 17:25, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I went with a single map with some identifying features instead of just neighborhood outlines like the Minneapolis maps. I'm not sure if the single map should be included on every neighborhood page for identification, similar to how Minneapolis has a map on each neighborhood page. Let me know if anyone has suggestions for improvement. Eóin (talk) 23:14, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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