Talk:Town square/Archives/2013

1989 tiananmen protests
to characterize the 1989 protests as "anti-communist" is inaccurate. many of the protestors, both students and workers, were self-avowed communists who believed that they were protesting in the name of communism (although their viewpoints were not necessarily the same - the students/intellectuals tended to think the economic reforms had not gone far enough while the workers actually tended to think the opposite). it would be more correct to label the protests as "anti-government" or "anti-corruption", or even "pro-democracy"

- Hold no relevance for the discussion, what could be important for the article though, is the use of public space in China which is historically and significantly different than in the European case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.14.76.208 (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"The probably best-known and largest such square in China is the Shanghai People's Square"?!?
Surely this must be Tiananmen square in Beijing... For information on the square, see Spence's online article (blocked in China, thanks CCP!) : http://www.tsquare.tv/links/spence.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.14.76.208 (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Diversify the pictures section
I'd suggest finding a better photo of a US city square (Copley Square in Boston is the most photogenic, imho), and including an old plaza in Latin America, such as one in Cuzco or Mexico City. I've given up on trying to add pictures to wikipedia, but I'd suggest that someone who's actually allowed to to do so. 71.234.198.222 (talk) 23:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

synonyms
Other names for town square are civic center, city square, urban square, market square, public square, town green, platz (from German), plaza (from Spanish), piazza (from Italian), place (from French), praça (from Portuguese), plac (from Polish) and maydan (from Persian and Arabic). Are all of these used in English?? Wikipedia is not a dictionary. —Tamfang (talk) 23:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about the German, Portuguese, Polish or Persian ones, or indeed "Town Green", but I've seen all the others used before, either in the UK or USA. Might in fact even have seen "Platz" used, either for an actual square in an English-speaking country, or just in general description of German squares - in which case it could be useful context. But you have a point; where then do you draw the line? There's a couple hundred languages and probably most of them have some kind of word for a hard-surfaced gathering place in the middle of a settlement... 91.125.109.21 (talk) 13:05, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

"Hardscape"?
As noted on the talk page for Hardscape itself, I'm rather skeptical as to whether this is a term that can be applied in a blanket fashion to urban engineering and paved areas, when it seems to be a marketing term made up by a garden design company in the 80s (the cite links in its own article are basically adverts), and certainly seems much more in general use for garden paths and patios than for interstates and plazas. Is there no better way of describing it other than that, or should the sentence concerned maybe be nixed altogether? 91.125.109.21 (talk) 13:02, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Boston
Hi, just added the "In some cities...line of duty" section. I'm not sure how widespread these usages are. I know in the Boston area "square" basically just means an area with a lot of stores and stuff (or, as I also added, just an intersection named after somebody). Are these two usages found in other cities? If so, please remove "In the Boston area" or add other places where this usage is seen. If not, change "some cities" to "greater Boston." Or possibly I will do some research and find out for myself. Foxmulder 03:39, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I would call this a metaphorical use of the term. Lots of shopping areas are called "plaza," "square," or "place" (not to mention "mall," the granddaddy of them all) to link them to the traditional idea of a community market space. However, this information might be appropriate for the market square and shopping mall articles. --Tysto 15:56, 2005 August 13 (UTC)