Talk:Secondary city

Inconsistent Entry
Several different problems here in an overall ambiguous and spotty entry. These in part stem from the fact that 'secondary city' is not in clearly-defined term in usage of urbanists or in official fora. Below I note some problems and suggestions to improving the entry.

First, the initial claim in the text - that Secondary Cities exist in relation to Primate Cities - is not substantiated in the incomplete lists given below. Primate Cities are defined as cities that are at least twice the size of the second-largest city in a given country. Many if not most of the cities listed are in countries that do not have a Primate City (China, India, Pakistan, etc). The reference to an entry on Urban Hierarchy is unhelpful here. The first footnote/link is of questionable authority. The range of size for Secondary Cities is rather arbitrary. Scholars of South America argue that 20,000 population constitutes a Secondary City. And what of cities over 7m that are not the largest urban area in a given country (such as several cities in India and China, or even Chicago, the paradigmatic 'Second City').

Perhaps this could be changed to state "Secondary Cities can be defined as large urban areas which are neither Primate Cities, megacities, national capitals, nor the single largest city in a given country" or something to this effect. This seems more accurate. Even still, the lists will need to be edited since many of the cities listed are in fact megacities (ie, population over 10m) themselves, such as Delhi, Karachi, Chengdu, Rio; and several other cities are the largest city in a given a country (Toronto or Montreal, Delhi, Karachi, Istanbul, Sao Paulo, etc).

Elbev (talk) 19:23, 28 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I removed São Paulo for that reason; it's Brazil's largest city, and almost twice as large as the second largest (Rio de Janeiro). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.63.129.112 (talk) 00:07, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

List of secondary cities
I've removed the list of secondary cities as almost entirely unsourced WP:OR. Only the African cities were sourced, and even that source requires WP:SYNTH to support a list of cities based on it. Unless some reliable source can be cited without original research, the section is not useful or appropriate. agt x 16:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Lead
The lead needs to be cleaned up and explain exactly what this topic is about. I may try later, but I'd have to read up on it first. agt x 16:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Updated content in article
I reviewed the content and have updated the article taking into account the comments in the string. I have paid particular attention to the lead and have addressed the issues in the inconsistent entry. MJean17 (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Remove template
I removed the template after updating this article. MJean17 (talk) 18:50, 5 July 2023 (UTC)