Talk:Prospect Hill, New Haven

Merge discussion
I agree with the proposal to merge Prospect Hill Historic District (New Haven, Connecticut) into this article about the Prospect Hill neighborhood. It is true that not all of the buildings in the neighborhood are eligible for the National Register, but the buildings identified for inclusion in historic district are a major element of the neighborhood, and the distinction made in separating the historic district (HD) article from the neighborhood article is totally artificial.

It appears to me from the nom form that this particular HD was listed on the National Register to help formalize a negotiation process (between Yale University and historic preservation authorities) regarding Yale's plans for new facilities affecting some parts of the area that was listed the HD. There is nothing "special" that connects the particular collection of properties included in the HD (or distinguishes them from the rest of the neighborhood as a whole). --Orlady (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The historic district and the original community known as Prospect Hill are basically identical. Of course there are exclusions of modern buildings but that is not unusual at all. It is true that the official city planning maps carves it very slightly differently on the edges, it does not remove the fact that what the historic district is talking about is the residential neighborhood known as Prospect Hill. Architecture is one of the unifying elements of the residential portion of Prospect Hill and is appropriate for discussion in the neighborhood article. --Polaron | Talk 22:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. It's been developed elsewhere (including at Talk:Hillhouse Avenue Historic District just now), that there are in fact three historic districts partly included in the Prospect Hill neighborhood, at least how the neighborhood is defined by the city of New Haven. The Prospect Hill Historic District and the Hillhouse Avenue Historic District are both mostly within the neighborhood, but extend into the Dixwell (neighborhood) and Downtown New Haven neighborhoods. The Whitney Avenue Historic District is mostly in the East Rock (neighborhood) but has a significant portion, the houses lining the west side of Whitney Avenue, within the Prospect Hill neighborhood. Also, since the above comments, articles for Prospect Hill Historic District and Whitney Avenue Historic District have been developed. About common architecture providing a unifying theme for Prospect Hill, that's a worthwhile approach to trying to define an area (and is often used in defining historic districts). But, the architecture of the Prospect Hill HD is not very different from that of the Whitney Avenue HD. And, the Hillhouse Avenue HD's architecture seems different (Italian villa-oriented) from the Prospect Hill HD's. It seems best to keep these separate;  they are different topics and cover different geographic areas, and there is no simple way by architecture to define the Prospect Hill neighborhood. --doncram (talk) 14:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

If you study maps of the Prospect Hill neighborhood (including topographic maps), you will see that Prospect Street is a 2-lane street (plus parking) on the crest of a hill, and that the city's map puts the two sides of the 2-lane street into different neighborhoods. The maps combine part of the west side of Prospect Street with an area that is physically separated from Prospect Street by a steep hillside. I don't know you think of neighborhoods in cities that you know well, but I have never encountered a place where people don't consider themselves to be in the same neighborhood as their across-the-street neighbors, but instead affiliate with a neighborhood that is separated by a rather steep hillside. Regardless of what you have concluded from the city maps:
 * Once again, as I've said on other talk pages, the boundaries of the city's neighborhood planning maps don't effectively define real neighborhoods in New Haven. The map boundaries are arbitrarily defined by street centerlines, and those boundaries often are drawn to correspond to census tract boundaries. There are good reasons to use streets to separate planning maps, but that means that the boundaries sometimes depart from the actual boundaries of neighborhoods.
 * The entire Prospect Hill historic district is actually in the Prospect Hill neighborhood (has it occurred to you that this might have something to do with how the HD name was chosen?),
 * The entire Whitney Avenue historic district is in the East Rock neighborhood (note that the Prospect Hill and Whitney Avenue HDs are contiguous to one another and have many historical and architectural similarities, so neither of these factors provided a reason for drawing the boundary where it is; the boundary between the HDs clearly was determined by neighborhood affiliation, and it actually is a more accurate delineation of the actual neighborhood boundaries than the city planning maps provide), and
 * The entire Hillhouse Avenue historic district is on Prospect Hill. --Orlady (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll respond here, with interest of removing the merger proposal. I don't understand the point of the last comment except that it seems to show general opposition to whatever i said before, above and elsewhere, relating to personal antagonism between the commentator and myself.  The question "has it occurred to you that this might have to do with how the HD name was chosen?" seems intentionally rude, perhaps, consistent with use of other use of sarcasm by the commentator which has often failed to prove useful in other discussions.  To respond to that:  Yes.  It did occur to me.  I rejected that interpretation because it is simplistic and, from experience I know that it would be pretty stupid, in fact, to assume that similarity in name between a neighborhood / village/ hamlet vs. a historic name meant that they covered the same area.  There are dozens / hundreds of examples in Connecticut alone, and several in New Haven specifically, where the simplistic reasoning is proven wrong.  For example, consider the fact that New Haven's Orange Street Historic District omits most of Orange Street, which is covered as much or more in other historic districts.  And, by my looking at the maps of areas involved here, I already determined that the simplistic assumption approach would be wrong here.


 * The point that the Hillhouse Avenue Historic District is entirely included in the official neighborhood, but not in the Prospect Hill Historic District, is pretty important. If the general principle behind merger is that historic districts should be covered in neighborhood / hamlet / village articles, that is not met in the merger proposal, which fails to propose that the Hillhouse Avenue HD be merged.


 * Also a major point is that there has been no development of any other source on what is Prospect Hill, besides the official definition of the neighborhood by the city. The name "Prospect Hill Historic District" is not the same, obviously, and it is implausible that the HD area defines the hill, given its actual boundaries and the fact that its actual boundaries are not publicly known.  Given that the merger proposal has been open a longish time now with no development of sources, and given the reasons i've shared above and here why i oppose merger, I think it's time to remove the merger proposal.  I believe that would best indicate to local readers/editors that the articles involved are safe for editing, and that the previous contenders (myself included) will not interfere with regular development of articles.  I believe that is best immediately for wikipedia readers and best for future development of these articles. --doncram (talk) 12:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You seem to be adamantly opposed to mergers only in Connecticut. In other places, you seem to be receptive to mergers, even deferring to people with local knowledge if a merger is good or not. Here, people with local knowledge are saying a merger is appropriate. You've been told to not rely solely on the city's neighborhood planning maps for neighborhood boundaries as they're quirky in several instances. A reading of the nomination form clearly talks about the Prospect Hill neighborhood as a whole. In Prospect Hill, the Hillhouse portion is not on the actual physical hill, and has not been traditionally part of the Prospect Hill neighborhood. The article on the Prospect Hill neighborhood should primariyl be about the residential neighborhood and not on the quirky boundaries used by the neighborhood planning maps. There have been many books written about New Haven neighborhoods, even before there were historic districts defined for them. If we unify the articles, then locals would feel safe developing the articles. I say, we merge now so that the merger proposals can be removed. --Polaron | Talk 12:39, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought it was just me. I agree with Polaron's assessment given the debate I had with Don yesterday at [] Markvs88 (talk) 14:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I drop my current proposal to remove the Merger proposal tags here, for now. Markvs88, I don't think you or any other editor really would want to go into the entire history between Orlady, Polaron and me that conceivably has bearing here, which includes an 8 month long running debate and lots of edit warring and invective.  The history is potentially relevant in understanding Orlady's, Polaron's, and my perspectives about merger proposals like this and our perspectives in understanding the others' motivations and otherwise, but I wouldn't / don't want you to have to go into it.  There is a lot of nasty stuff in it all that has little to do with the narrow question of merging "Prospect Hill (New Haven)" with Prospect Hill Historic District articles.


 * About my perspective on local knowledge generally, i'll say this much here: I do tend to want to defer to editors who have credible local knowledge on matters that are suited for local knowledge to have bearing.  For example, in discussion at Talk:Housatonic River Railroad Bridge, which brings Marksv88 here, I do defer to Marksv88's credible local knowledge that "Devon Bridge" is a name locally used for Washington Bridge (Connecticut).  I'll comment more about that at Talk:Housatonic River Railroad Bridge.  But, I do not wish to defer to local knowledge about matters that local knowledge wouldn't or doesn't know anything about.  For example, if a person lives near someplace and knows relatively little about it, that is not interesting or relevant to much, encyclopedia-wise.  It is not useful to entertain assertions like "I lived near it and never happened to know it was called X, so it must not ever have been called X by anyone anywhere anytime in history."  The local person should be given some deference in what an article should be called, I usually agree, as the name for a place should usually be the common name for a place.  But, they should not be given complete license.  For example, if a local name is deliberately obscure or jargony, say if New Jersey locals called the Statue of Liberty "that old woman", say, it is then not right to defer to the "local knowledge" and over-rule the world-wide perspective on what is the correct name for the place to be used in an article name.


 * Some limited deference also applies to whether a person who once lived locally "knows" whether a NRHP-listed historic district is the same as a local neighborhood. For example, someone in a local historical association, or someone involved in creating a historic district as part of a local historic preservation drive, does have some relevant standing.  In this case, I don't currently believe that Polaron or Orlady or me, when we lived in or passed through New Haven, had specific knowledge of the Prospect Hill Historic District.  It is not a district that has local signage.  I don't believe that has been widely known what is included in the historic district, what are its boundaries (having a wikipedia article about it can change that over time).  I don't believe that most people who lived or live in the area are credible authorities on whether the term "Prospect Hill Historic District" is basically the same as "Prospect Hill", a neighborhood.  Indeed, as i have commented elsewhere, I don't think "Prospect Hill" is well defined locally, i.e. there is not a local consensus on what it is.  So it is especially hard to believe anyone who ever was local has special insight that the two are essentially the same.  And, by the maps and the sources cited in the articles, they are not the same, so it is best to go with that, IMO.


 * I do drop the proposal to remove the merger proposal tag. It seems it is not time yet to resolve this and other straggler issues from the long CT NRHP discussions elsewhere.  To Orlady and Polaron, could we perhaps continue elsewhere about the general matters, if necessary, without involving others unnecessarily.  Thanks! --doncram (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You're arguing about minor differences in the edges. The main point is the bulk of the areas are identical. Everyone who lives in the area knows about Prospect Hill but very few would know about Prospect Hill Historic District. They might have differing opinions as to where exactly Prospect Hill ends but there is a big chunk where everyone agrees that it is Prospect Hill. Look at the historical discussion in the nomination form and convince me that it does not refer to the residential neighborhood known as Prospect Hill. Any minor differences in definitions can and should be mentioned but the history of the residential neighborhood and the historic district are inseparable. Hillhouse Avenue should be discussed separately as that developed much earlier than Prospect Hill but the Prospect Hill Historic District and the residential neighborhood named Prospect Hill should be one article. If we followed your principle, you might create separate articles for say a hamlet in New York and a CDP based on that hamlet just because locals might have different ideas about where the hamlet ends from where the CDP is defined. In almost all cases, hamlets and CDPs based on hamlets have unified articles. Neither article the case of Prospect Hill is overly long such that discussing all aspects of "Prospect Hill" in a single article becomes cumbersome. Architecture is the unifying them of this neighborhood and needs to be discussed here, not in a separate article. A merge will make for a better understanding of the topic of the neighborhood. Let's merge now and be done with it. --Polaron | Talk 16:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is minor variation. There are lots of historic districts in New Haven alone, where whichever powers that be sought creation of historic districts, where the naming is loose and evocative of neighborhoods or former neighborhood areas,  but where the historic district absolutely does not correspond to the neighborhood.  For one example, Orange Street Historic District.  For Prospect Hill, there has been no sources provided but the official New Haven maps which Polaron and Orlady have in various discussions expressed objections to.  The way to clear contention here in the articles, is to avoid the contention:  have separate articles which can mention the other ones, but which need not include wp:OR or other difficult definition of the relationship.  In a combined article, on the other hand, it is essential that the relationship between two topics be explained.  You cannot explain it, so it cannot be combined.  Also, i do think that the topics are different.  Orlady, above and elsewhere, has asserted that Hillhouse Avenue, or at least the upper part of it is in the neighbhorhood.  I also do not understand "Prospect Hill" to refer to just the residential area well above Hillhouse and above Science Hill.  It is 100% completely obviously clear that the HD is not the same as the official New Haven neighborhood.  But you do not have a consensus even of editors present who have some local knowledge, that "Prospect Hill Historic District" is largely the same as "what is usually meant locally as Prospect Hill" (and no source, no way to define that vague concept well enough to put it into mainspace, either).


 * Also, in terms of leaving a structure in place that helps in developing the articles, i believe that having a simple, clear article on the historic district, one which lists out a bunch of individual important properties within it, is the way to attract locals to appreciate the history and to contribute photographs and bring the article towards the very good quality historic district articles that Wikipedia editors such as Daniel Case and others have created. In previous discussions, Daniel Case and others who have actually created such good HD articles have more or less unanimously agreed that HDs should not be force-merged into hamlet/village/neighborhood articles.  It is only in rare cases, such as the HD being defined to identify and preserve a specific real estate development in its entirety, that they and I agree that there should be the same.  You may find Daniel or others saying okay have a merge while the material is undeveloped, but no editor of these good articles argues for forced merger once one is developed.  Why not just work at expanding the HD article.  Also, then the neighborhood article can benefit from the development of material, which can more easily be summarized in the neighborhood article.  The neighborhood article, by the way, needs to summarize about architecture in all 3 historic districts.  It is probably not appropriate to have a whole lot of detail about one HD's specific properties and addresses and so on, and just summary info about the other two.


 * This is a plain, good solution: leave them unmerged, and remove the merger tags which indicate to other editors that there is contention here, and that they should stay away.  Then move this new, slightly scary discussion to an archive, off this Talk page.  The other alternative is to merge, which I believe simply does not work in terms of creating a good article, and/or to keep scaring people away by having merger and/or split proposals and arguments going on forever.  There would be continuing tension about the level of detail appropriate about the three HDs in a merged article.  Why merge 1 but not the other 2 HDs, that would never be clear.  There would be continuing tension about other content matters, too.


 * Polaron, you seem to be most concerned about the neighborhood article. Why don't you go ahead and develop that?  For one thing, you could create a map showing the 3 HDs' boundaries, the official neighborhood boundary, and any other definition of the neighborhood that you can find in a source.  That would be useful in the neighborhood article no matter what.  And, develop the neighborhood article to summarize about the information that has been developed in each of the 3 HD articles.  And, work with me to continue to develop detail in the 3 separate HD articles, as you did previously in the Whitney Avenue Historic District article and have been doing in some other New Haven articles i have touched recently. --doncram (talk) 18:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The way to clear the contention here is to have a combined article discussing all aspects of Prospect Hill. What you don't seem to get is that the concepts do not have to coincide perfectly for there to be a single article. We merge unincorporated village and CDP articles all the time. Whitney Avenue vs. East Rock is not comparable here is the modern East Rock neighborhood is an amalgam of distinct sections. The main residential portion of Prospect Hill is the same as the historic district of that name. Hillhouse being part of Prospect Hill is debatable that is why it is not merged. Propsect Hill HD being part of Prospect Hill is obvious. Discussing specific houses and addresses is entirely appropriate in a neighborhood article distinguished for its architecture. I don't know why you're so resistant here but not in other places where I am not involved. --Polaron | Talk 19:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with much of what you suggest here. In broad terms i do support and defer to editors with local expertise, but from an 8 month long argument with you, I am too familiar with what you know and do not know about New Haven and Connecticut to defer to you blindly here.  The main point you should have taken away from the long argument is that unsourced assertions are not welcome in the wikipedia, whether it is content in an article or in the form of redirects that serve as unsourced, arguments of similarity of places.  The main resolution of the long argument was to accept your own proposal on which places to merge vs. not merge, and the application of terms of that proposal of your very own, here, is that the articles should be separate.  You have ways forward to contribute to Wikipedia in this area, for example by providing maps which you have shown you can do.  I wish you would choose to build content.  Here, again, we have written more than the full size of both articles.  This is again, not being helpful, so I may choose not to comment much further.  I don't expect that further discussion would be helpful.  Thanks. --doncram (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What I know about New Haven has been far more accurate than what you know. Some splits are very much reasonable but this particular one is not. The NRHP nomination is clearly talking about a neighborhood named Prospect Hill of which over 95% is in the official planning area (which as has been pointed out to you is quirky on the edges). --Polaron | Talk 19:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The article has been the subject of edits recently by Polaron towards showing just information about the Prospect Hill Historic District, which he might think would help get others to agree to merge that separate article into this one. He has been actively editing to remove information about the 3 other historic districts that are wholly or partly included in this neighborhood. I have been adding equal info about the other three. I am pretty sick and tired of this contention. The bias / anti-historic-district POV is pretty obvious. Either there should be no detail about the individual contributing properties in historic districts, or detail from all of the historic districts should be included.

I don't really think Polaron cares a whit about the material (because why would you oppose coverage of the buildings in the neighborhood?); it appears more that the motivation is just towards gaming to "win" the proposed merger. I certainly hope that gaming does not work. I wonder about polling others again now, but i hate to bother the other editors. Any ideas?

Also, I reported Polaron for 3RR violation at wp:3rrnb just now. I'd appreciate if other editors could consider fixing the last edits to restore the relatively equal material. I don't want to exceed 3rr myself. --doncram (talk) 21:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, comparing the two articles as they currently exist, I still think they should be merged. There's nothing of encyclopedic value in the HD article that isn't also in the neighborhood article -- or if it isn't already there, it could be incorporated easily. More significantly, without the context of the information in the neighborhood article, the HD article seems incomplete. --Orlady (talk) 21:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The inaccuracy of including properties along Whitney Avenue has already been discussed above. As has been said, no local person actually thinks that properties fronting Whitney Avenue are in Prospect Hill. The boundary quirks are already addressed in the article. You have to understand that the historic district boundary of the Prospect Hill Historic District is probably a more accurate representation of what is known as the Prospect Hill neighborhood. Include only buildings that are undoubtedly in Prospect Hill. Whitney Avenue is in East Rock. I think we can repurpose the HD article to be a list of properties with the main discussion of the historical context taking place here. I think if we make the neighborhood article primarily about the historic district and what is currently the historic district article into a more detailed list article then we're in good shape. --Polaron | Talk 21:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, you're looking at the this-moment-current article, which has detail copied from the Prospect Hill Historic District article, but from which Polaron has deleted equivalent detail about contributing properties in the neighborhoods 3 other historic districts. Sure, it begins to look close to being the same as the HD article, since it is copied from that and anything different is deleted!  POV editing, towards supporting the merger, should not be allowed to trick you or other editors that might visit this discussion.
 * We've been thru the general arguments several times over. The historic district article is a good start, ready to support a visitor or local editor taking pics of many of the properties and developing a full, good HD article.  That Polaron has copied the info over into the neighborhood article does not make that a good place for the same development.  It already is an inappropriate amount of detail on individual buildings for a neighborhood article, which should be short and to the point, about the official neighborhood.  In other cases, P argues the hd is substantially the same as a given town/village/hamlet/neighborhood.  Here, there are FOUR historic districts in the neighborhood.  It cannot be the same!  Should they all be merged?  Should just the one wholly included in the neighborhood be merged?  Oh, oops, that's not the one he wants to merge.... --doncram (talk) 21:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You want to focus on the planning boundary. I want the article to be about what was originally called Prospect Hill. Various definitions of Prospect Hill can be included in the article but the main focus has to be on the residential neighborhood that no one disputes is Prospect Hill. For the most part, that corresponds to the historic district. As I said, we can move the list of buildings to the HD article, which we will repurpose as a list and make this article to be about the residential neighborhood. --Polaron | Talk 21:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Your comment showing before mine, jus above, seems to have been entered at the same time as mine. Well, great, it seems maybe this will all be resolved.  If i undersand you correctly, you are now for moving/keeping the lists of contributing buildings in the historic district articles.  Which is fine, great.  I just noticed and reverted your renaming a different historic district article from Name Historic District to "List of buildings in Name Historic District" though, and i am a little worried you might want to do that here, with, who knows what, a redirect at the historic district name.  There is no need to split out a list of buildings from the Prospect Hill Historic District article.  If you mean what you say here, that you are now okay with there being a historic district article at Prospect Hill Historic District (New Haven, Connecticut), and cancel the merger proposal, then great!  Seriously!  Whoo-hoo! :) --doncram (talk) 23:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I want this one to be the historic district article where the context of the whole is discussed and the other one to be the list article where specific details of buildings are discussed. The title of the other one should be changed to "List of..." and the historic district name should redirect here. --Polaron | Talk 23:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, well, that is silly. Polaron, you finally agree to keep a separate article on thi historic district, separate from a combo article about an official neighborhood and a census tract that may or may not be the same area, but you want the historic district article to be named something else!  Hah!  No way, after more than a year of debate about this stupid merge proposal! --doncram (talk) 00:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Lvklock
I agree with Doncram (well that's as much of a surprise as that Orlady and Polaron don't, isn't it). In particular, I agree with these things:

"in terms of leaving a structure in place that helps in developing the articles, i believe that having a simple, clear article on the historic district, one which lists out a bunch of individual important properties within it, is the way to attract locals to appreciate the history and to contribute photographs and bring the article towards the very good quality historic district articles..." --doncram 4 May 2010

"The historic district article is a good start, ready to support a visitor or local editor taking pics of many of the properties and developing a full, good HD article. That Polaron has copied the info over into the neighborhood article does not make that a good place for the same development."--doncram 7 September 2010

And, here are some of the specifics with which I disagree, from the entire discussion above (yes, I realize that some of them are old comments, but it's all the same topic of discussion).Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"the distinction made in separating the historic district (HD) article from the neighborhood article is totally artificial" --Orlady 27 February 2010

The distinction may be artificial, but then I guess all historic designations and recognitions are. If you don't care about the designations, then you don't care about the historic districts. I get that you're more interested in the general history than in what someone decided to include in the NRHP nomination. But, I and others are very interested in exactly what is included and what is not. I am often frustrated by the lack of information about what is included in designated historic districts (National or otherwise) that I come across, and I love it when there's some source that details the exact what and why. That's the kind of information I'm working to share here. So, the fact that you're not into it doesn't mean someone else isn't, and it doesn't mean that the stub should not be allowed to exist until the article meets your standards. Wikipedia is a work in progress, and I don't care whether you think it's artificial or not, I think there's a world of difference between a designated historic district and a neighborhood. I think they both deserve articles. I think your efforts are much more beneficial to Wikipedia in the myriad other places you contribute than here where, let's face it, your primary concern is fighting Doncram.Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"There is nothing "special" that connects the particular collection of properties included in the HD (or distinguishes them from the rest of the neighborhood as a whole)."--Orlady 27 February 2010

I disagree. What's "special", IMO is that they are on the list. That MAKES them special. It makes them different. It gives me a little more information about them that about the one down the street that wasn't listed. I may know the date it was built or the architect. And, it is distinguished by having been recognized by the federal government as conforming to a certain set of standards. Now, I'm not saying that some of the others might not be just as special. I'm just saying that being in the historic district and on the list documents that these are, and lets me write about them with assurance that they are, in some way, special.Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

''"The historic district and the original community known as Prospect Hill are basically identical. Of course there are exclusions...." --Polaron 27 February 2010''

''"The main point is the bulk of the areas are identical." --Polaron 4 May 2010''

DEFINITION OF IDENTICAL Exactly equivalent, selfsame; bearing full likeness by having precisely the same set of characteristics.

They are NOT identical. There are differences of era, of interest of the reader, of boundary....Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"the boundaries of the city's neighborhood planning maps don't effectively define real neighborhoods in New Haven." and "There are good reasons to use streets to separate planning maps, but that means that the boundaries sometimes depart from the actual boundaries of neighborhoods." Leading to:
 * The entire Prospect Hill historic district is actually in the Prospect Hill neighborhood...
 * The entire Whitney Avenue historic district is in the East Rock neighborhood (note that the Prospect Hill and Whitney Avenue HDs are contiguous to one another and have many historical and architectural similarities, so neither of these factors provided a reason for drawing the boundary where it is; the boundary between the HDs clearly was determined by neighborhood affiliation, and it actually is a more accurate delineation of the actual neighborhood boundaries than the city planning maps provide), and
 * The entire Hillhouse Avenue historic district is on Prospect Hill. --Orlady 6 March 2010

If Wikipedia is all about verifiability, how do you verify statements like that? Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

''"Hillhouse Avenue should be discussed separately as that developed much earlier than Prospect Hill but the Prospect Hill Historic District and the residential neighborhood named Prospect Hill should be one article." --Polaron 4 May 2010''

An article about a neighborhood should talk about all eras of a neighborhood. An article about a historic distrcit should talk mainly about the era that is historically significant. Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

''"The way to clear the contention here is to have a combined article discussing all aspects of Prospect Hill." --Polaron 4 May 2010''

Well, obviously that's not going to clear the contention, so that was just a nonsensical thing to say. "The way to clear the contention is to let me have my way." Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

''"What you don't seem to get is that the concepts do not have to coincide perfectly for there to be a single article." --Polaron 4 May 2010''

No, what you don't seem to get is that the presence of a combined article does not preclude the existence of a separate more detailed article on an aspect of that article. Especially when the combined article is about something as ill-defined geographically as this neighborhood, while the historic district has exact parameters. Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

''"I think we can repurpose the HD article to be a list of properties with the main discussion of the historical context taking place here." --Polaron 7 September 2010''

Oh, so you will deign to allow the article to exist as long as you get to gut it and call it something else? Why on earth do you care what the article is called? Why, other than because you like to fight with Doncram, must you obliterate all Historic District articles in Connecticut? What possible good is served by renaming the article to a list and sticking a redirect in between the NRHP lists and the List of properties in the historic district? Oh, wait, no, you want to redirect people who clearly want to know about the historic distrcit not to the detail about the historic district, but to your ephemeral neighborhood article.?! Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

''"I think if we make the neighborhood article primarily about the historic district and what is currently the historic district article into a more detailed list article then we're in good shape." --Polaron 7 September 2010 ''

Huh? If any article is primarily about the historic district then it should be called Prospect Hill Historic District. What the heck would be served by having an article named something else be primarily..........that's just mind bogglingly......I don't even have a polite word. Lvklock (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

demographics and census track stuff
I fact-tagged an assertion in the demographics section of this article that the neighborhood corresponds closely to a specific census tract. There is no source for that given. If someone could provide a map to include in the article that showed the relationship of areas, it could possibly be useful to keep this demographics info in. Otherwise, i think it is best to strike this from the article. There are not demographics sections in most other New Haven neighborhoods articles. I don't think it is too important to try to construct such sections, and it's definitely not worth it if there is not a very close correspondence between neighborhood and census- or other reliably-sourced information. --doncram (talk) 19:24, 4 May 2010 (UTC) 

accuracy in article
I revised the article to improve accuracy on several points, and now Polaron has reverted my changes. For example in this edit, Polaron restores a technically false assertion that the Prospect Hill HD is wholly included in the neighborhood, an assertion that is not true by anyone's definition of the neighborhood. With edit summary about avoiding nit-picking! I don't care too much about this article; i was trying to improve it by increasing its accuracy and sourcing, but this seems not productive. --doncram (talk) 19:33, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't say it is "wholly" in the district. It says most of the residential part of the neighborhood is part of the historic district. Why is that not correct? You're nitpicking. --Polaron | Talk 19:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That's misleading. It does not say that.  The sentence added/restored by you is "Prospect Hill is a mostly residential neighborhood of the city of New Haven, Connecticut.".  The plain understanding of that would be a) that the HD is included in the neighborhood (which is technically FALSE), and b) the neighborhood is mostly residential (which is UNSOURCED, and possibly false, depending on how the neighborhood is defined).  I am not finding this productive or fun, so i may not reply further.  I tried to improve this and related article by removing merger tags, find that is not going to happen without further contention, and now I do wish to move on, thanks! --doncram (talk) 19:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Oops, i see that in the spurt of edit warring that i did not state that exactly correctly. Not that sentence, but other sentences and construction in some versions of the article here do assert outright, or strongly imply, the false part (a).  The part (b) is unsourced however.  If you want to nitpick back that my quest for improvement of accuracy of the article is not perfect, you can go right ahead.  What is needed is sources and accurate development of the article, however, and there should be no question that i am for that.  I object to unsourced and wp:OR / personal knowledge-based material in this and related articles. --doncram (talk) 19:55, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The neighborhood is mostly residential. That is a fact (see the zoning maps). There are non-residential areas but most of it is. Now looking only at the residential part, most of it is listed as part of the Prospect Hill historic district. Again, that is obvious. Again you're just nitpicking. There is nothing misleading about the text I put in. --Polaron | Talk 19:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Um, what zoning maps? Do you have a map that shows your definition of the neighborhood and New Haven zoning?  I don't see zoning designation clearly in the one map of the official neighborhood that is the one source linked in the article.  If there is zoning information within that, it is subtle.  And, to be technical, your making a judgment from such a map could be going over the policy/guidelines on wp:synthesis / wp:OR.  But, again, i just don't see further discussion here as likely to be helpful. --doncram (talk) 19:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

map
The map at right, prepared by Polaron, is basically a nice addition to the article. However it seems biased to support an argument for merger of the Prospect Hill Historic District article into this article about the neighborhood. The district is one of 4 historic districts partially in the neighborhood; I think the map's omission of two of them is deliberate, towards supporting the idea that the neighborhood and one of the four districts are the same. Another problem with the map is that it is inaccurate in showing relationship of the Hillhouse Avenue Historic District to the neighborhood; i believe that district spans outside of the neighborhood in fact. I have now removed the map from the article for discussion here. --doncram (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2010 (UTC)