Talk:Salt Lake City/Archive 4

Block Size
I'd like to set the issue on block size straight once and for all. Salt Lake has 10 acre blocks. 1 Acre is 45,560 sq. ft, ergo, 10 acres is 456,000. Because the blocks are square, that means that each side of the block is 660'. This agrees with the '8 blocks to the mile' statistic that is banded about. But the actual distance covered when walking 8 blocks is considerably larger, because of the presence of the streets in between. Salt Lake has extremely wide streets. 132' wide to be precise. From lot line to lot line of the 10 acre blocks is 132'. It would be oh-so-nice if they happened to be 140 (140'+660'=800') but that is simply not so. SOURCE: Brenda Case Scheer: "The Mormon Grid: Zion in the Desert". University of Utah. International Seminar on Urban Form. Trani, Italy, 2003. Theblindsage 11:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You have a mistake. It is 1 acre = 43,560 sq. ft., therefore 10 acres = 435,600 sq. ft.

Too many pictures?
Anyone else think there may be too many irrelavent pictures on the SLC page? Like the Bingham mine picture. Its not that it is a bad picture it just isn't in Salt Lake City. - Skyguy414 15:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement here, particularly regarding the large-format pictures. The skyline photograph  should probably be removed because of quality issues.  It has very little contrast (it's difficult to make out the buildings against the background) and looks like it was saved at a very high compression ratio which has created a lot of artifacts, particularly around the lights and signs.  The article does benefit from an image of the downtown skyline, but I am in favor of removing this particular image until a clearer substitute can be acquired. - Authalic 18:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I was bold and removed several photos:
 * Image:Northskyline2004saltlakecity.jpg - for the reasons stated above.
 * Image:WasatchFront.jpg - bad stitching

The 'non-historical' B&W photos below - I like B&W, but not for an encyclopedia, these can be replaced by color photos
 * Image:Mountainsnearsaltlake.jpg
 * Image:Cityandcountybuilding.jpg - plus it's tilted - replaced with Image:SLCCityAndCountyBldg.jpg
 * Image:Wellsfargocenterslc.jpg
 * Image:Libertyparkslc.jpg
 * Image:Freewayslc.jpg
 * Image:Sugarhouseslc.jpg

I'll hunt around for replacements, or take some myself. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 16:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Two more I've removed:
 * Image:0001996.jpg - Tab Choir
 * Image:Salt Lake Temple-smaller.png - SL Temple

and replaced with Image:1897 Temple Square.jpg - I didn't see a modern overview photo of Temple Square.

Also added Image:SL Cauldron park arch.JPG (yes, it's one of mine) to show the Cauldron park and some snow - there's no other photos from winter. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 16:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Crime Section?
I was going through the article looking for some mention of the Trolley Square shootings, and I realized that the article does not have a crime section, like on most other cities. I know SLC is not known for it's crime, but still... Any thoughts? Mbatman72 17:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Most other cities do not have a crime section. It seems that only cities with well-known reputations have one.  Chicago, New York, Oakland, Detroit, and Philadelphia do, but Pheonix, Denver, Austin, Seattle, and Minneapolis do not.  Cities smaller than this rarely have a crime section.  That said, I wouldn't be opposed if anyone wrote a well-referenced and encyclopedic section. Cool Hand Luke 19:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It all depends how much you want to put into it. FA articles such as San Francisco, California, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Houston, Texas, and Seattle, Washington all at least mention it, while not dedicating a section, while the FA articles San Jose, California and Boston, Massachusetts have dedicated sections.  If you'd like to make Salt Lake City like other wiki city articles, you needn't include a section on crime, but to build the article to the level of depth of a FA, you should at least mention it.--Loodog 02:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it would be great to have a well-written crime section. I think it would add greatly to the article. Even if it's just one paragraph. bob rulz 07:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Another Featured Article with a dedicated crime section: Providence, Rhode Island--Loodog 06:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I live here in Salt Lake city, and there is quite a bit of crime that goes on here and just the other day there was something about a violent murder and also a shooting, so I dont think it would be a bad idea to add a crime section. Ripper404 (talk) 03:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Flag/seal?
Why doesn't this article have a flag or seal? As far as I know, Salt Lake has both of them. 67.41.178.66 02:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * They should definitely be included, and I will seek these out as part of my bazillionth attempt at getting this to FA status. bob rulz (talk) 09:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yet another attempt at FA
I believe I have improved my Salt Lake City knowledge by paying more attention to local matters and frequently reading the newspaper, and believe that I can now make that final push to FA status...as long as some people help me out! So how about it? We should actually make a dedicated push to make Salt Lake City an FA article, once and for all. bob rulz (talk) 09:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I updated the to-do list and did a skim of the article. I realized that this article isn't in as good of shape as I thought it was; the culture section is messy and bloated, as is the sites of interest section (which really should be rolled into the cutlure section). We could also use some more thorough referencing. I'll be taking a look at other city featured articles and seeing what could be done better here, as well as what we could do better than they do. bob rulz (talk) 10:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll do what I can to help. I'll give it a read-through and see if I can help with the bloat. I don't own any SLC references - anything in the county library system that would help? &mdash; Zaui (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There probably is somewhere in the library system, I'm sure. I haven't had time to look over the article much, but it definitely needs a trimming. I'd also like to work on a lot of the sub-articles, a lot of which are outdated, stubby, and even less informative than the main article. bob rulz (talk) 02:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Looking at Youngstown, Ohio - a pretty recent (Nov 2007) Featured article about a city - they don't have a culture section. It's included in the Attractions section. I'll try to re-organize this article to match that formatting. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 22:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think either one would work. Culture is a more all-encompassing term and I think allows for a little more flexibility in the content of the section. But most of the things you can put in the culture section are attractions, so it could go either way. bob rulz (talk) 07:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I added an urban area population to the infobox and requested the flag image to be SVGified on WP:GL. Hope this helps - 67.41.183.136 (talk) 08:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Liberal Diverse Progressive SLC!
Cheers for the demographics section of the article to mentioned the increasingly diverse population of a major city like Salt Lake with international links to the global economy. Despite the once "homogeneous white Mormon" character of the city, you find Latinos are quite numerous in the city's older working-class sections, while the Sugar House district was the main residential section for the city's European immigrant, black American and now Latino communities. There has been a dramatic increase in Asian-Americans, Middle Eastern immigrants and indeed a large gay- lesbian community in a "morally religious conservative" state.

The city's sociocultural change is notable where Mormons are only a porportion not the majority of residents, prior to 1990 the LDS was the largest church membership in SLC. Demographers alleged by the year 2040: Utah will no longer have a Mormon majority (which is already the case in Salt Lake City-County) due to many new residents in the past two decades aren't Mormons or LDS members, although Mormons from California (the largest number of LDS members of any US state) moving closer to the church compromised a large minority of new Utahn LDS members. The city's large Pacific Islander population was a result of global missionary programs in the past half century, but thousands of African and East Indian converts are coming to reside in the Salt Lake Valley. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 17:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Cityweekly.jpg
The image Image:Cityweekly.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --23:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"Notable residents"
Most city articles don't have this, and I used the article New York City (and FA) as an example. CL — 23:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not that unusual to have this list. Most cities I've seen actually do.  See WP:USCITY.  Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 03:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops... well, in that case, I'll restore the list... it just has to be cleaned up, because some don't live in the city proper, and it doesn't make the distinction between born in and living in. CL — 03:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that any city FAs have the list. It should stay for now so that its content can be added to List of famous Salt Lakers. bob rulz (talk) 12:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Demographics table needs work
Hi, I noticed the demographics table needs some work- according to http://factfinder.census.gov/, it's pretty much completely out of date. On top of that, it's not referenced at all. I don't really know how to properly cite something like that. Anyway, the 2006 numbers are readily available at that website. Thanks, D a R kA g E 7 [Talk] 02:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move
There is currently a proposal on the table to amend the Wikipedia naming conventions for US cities to follow the AP Stylebook's suggested names. This would effectively move a number of US city articles currently on the list, so Salt Lake City, Utah would be moved to Salt Lake City. To comment on this discussion, please go here. --Serge (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Finally!! This should've been done YEARS ago. bob rulz (talk) 19:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You said it [[Image:Face-grin.svg|20px]] CL — 22:26, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Mayor and Partisanship
Under Law and government it states that the city has a non-partisan mayor-council form of government. If it is non-partisan, why does the article contain information about the party affiliation of mayors? Alanraywiki (talk) 03:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I recall, this last election was run against a Democrat (Becker) and a Republican (Buhler), and I think it's been done this way for a long time. Perhaps the Law and government section is inaccurate, I'm not sure - but every mayoral election in the city it's between red and blue. CL — 03:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * According to this page on the city web site, "All elected officials in Salt Lake City serve nonpartisan posts."  This indicates to me that we should remove references to the mayor's political party, but it does not seem consistent with CountyLemonade's recollection.  Other thoughts? Alanraywiki (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The name "Salt"????
Why do they call it "Salt Lake City"???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.80.106.105 (talk) 23:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Because the Great Salt Lake is just northwest of the city. It used to be called Great Salt Lake City in a fit of overzealousness but dropped the "Great" and now we have this... I hope this wasn't a joke. CL — 05:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

LDS Numbers
"Extrapolating corresponding figures of 62% LDS in 1994 and 57% in 1999, along with the 2004 figure of 53%, renders a conservative estimate that Salt Lake County is most likely less than 40% LDS today." I'm curious as to the math on that? It decreased 5% in 5 years. And then 4% in 5 years. So, assuming the pattern follows (which seems to be what that sentence is saying), it has decreased over 14% (it says less than 40% today) in the last 5 years? It's also not referenced and sounds speculative. It seems to go against the 3 article policies (No original research, Neutral point of view, and Verifiability) --UtahStizzle (talk) 23:41, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Park West Amphitheater
I'm working on an article in which one of the sources mentions the Park West Amphitheater in Salt Lake City. All I can glean from the internet is that it has probably been shut down or renamed (i.e. "the former Park West Amphitheater") and that it may have been in Park City rather than Salt Lake City. If someone can post a link or a bit more information about what happened to the venue, I would be very appreciative. Thanks! Easterhouse (talk) 05:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * see my reply. &mdash; Zaui (talk) 21:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Infobox picture
An anon editor reverted the change, but I have to agree. That montage is not well-done. The pictures don't go together well, and the arrangement isn't harmonious. While montages can be a good way of including different views and landmarks, they need to be assembled with care. For a better example of a montage, see File:New LA Infobox Pic Montage 5.jpg.  Will Beback   talk    21:48, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, I created this montage as most major cities seem to be doing this. I'm definitely open to ideas and have a large amount of pictures to work with. The example you gave was good, but look at a Chicago or Denver one for instance, as they include different shapes and sizes. What would be some recommendations for landmarks / pictures to include, as that's what's typical in these montages. Staples of Salt Lake seem to be State and County buildings. LDS Temple / Temple Square. Downtown skyscrapers. Trax. Mountains. The person who reverted my edit also said to make it rectangular and to remove the Trax and Temple. The editor was anon as mentioned so I have no clue if they're making any sense. --UtahStizzle (talk) 22:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * One problem is that the B&W photo is mostly grey, so the shape of the building isn't clear. See commons:Category:Salt Lake Temple for better choices. Another glitch is that in the top photo there's a white roof(?) that parallels a horizontal border and appears like a mistake. In the image at the bottom left it's hard to interpret what we're seeing. At this size it's just a jumble of little shapes. The large white building on the right, middle has a distracting tree next to it, and it's not a good picture of the building. Is that really one of SLC's most memorable landmarks? The Wikimedia Commons has hundreds of photographs of buildings, some of which seem more suitable than these. In a montage it's important to use photos which will be clearly recognizable even when a half of an inch across. A final quibble: the pinnacle of the capitol dome is cut off.       Will Beback    talk    23:20, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, I don't think that different shapes and sizes are necessarily problems by themselves, but symmetry helps make for a more balanced montage. Overlaps probably aren't a good idea.   Will Beback    talk    00:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI I definitely agree Trax and the Temple should be included in this montage (if we really have to make a montage, I'd rather just have the skyline photo). However, those two images weren't exactly suitable (one can barely discern the Trax train and the temple photo is a bit awkward). 71.213.75.51 (talk) 23:54, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * No, I agree. I guess I should have ran the image across here first. I personally prefer a montage for larger cities,and notice the majority of major city entries (at least for the U.S) have one or are going to one. I've been messing around with a few:

File:Salt_lake_city_infobox_montage.jpg

That's much better. I'd suggest that you could trim the sky and foreground (just that white roof) on the top image a bit more. OTOH, it'd be nice to see the top of the pinnacle in the capitol, so it doesn't look cut off. At the bottom left it's not clear if the photo is of the building or the fountain. Also two if the middle photos have perspective issues. shooting one at an angle might be OK, but two next to each other isn't ideal. For the photo on the middle left, of the LDS, I'd suggest trimming the sides more. The piece of the building on the far left is a bit odd. Overall, though, a big improvement.  Will Beback   talk    02:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Classification
here are my calculations, to prove why I think the region should be placed in a transition zone. Falls between 30% and 70%. So use a linear model to determine the semi-arid precipitation threshold.
 * January average: -1.6 C
 * July average: 25.0 C
 * annual temperature: 11.1 C
 * annual precipitation: 419.2 mm
 * precipitation from April to September: 195.4 mm (46.6% distribution)

Thus the threshold is 420.7 mm, and Salt Lake City thus barely falls within. For January, -3.0 °C < -1.6 °C < 0.0 °C. For July, 25.0 °C > 22.0 °C. Thus at least the airport's climate is a cross between semi-arid (BSk), humid continental (Dfa), and humid subtropical (Cfa). Unless you choose to disregard the linear model, and only add 140, which would solidly put semi-arid out of consideration ---华钢琴49 (TALK) 04:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * P t = 20 * T yr + [140 + 3.5 * (D - 30)]
 * P t : semi-arid precipitation threshold
 * T yr : annual temperature in CELSIUS.
 * D: percent distribution of annual precipitation solely within the months of April to September in Northern Hemisphere.