Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Connecticut towns by regional planning agency


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus which defaults to keep. There is a consensus not to delete but not as to what should become of the page. The discussion as to whether it should be merged, renamed or kept as is can continue on the talk page. J04n(talk page) 13:22, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

List of Connecticut towns by regional planning agency

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Topic not notable? I don't see how this satisfies WP:LISTN. RetiredDuke (talk) 16:05, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Baby miss  fortune 16:53, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Connecticut-related deletion discussions. Baby miss  fortune 16:54, 14 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I do not see why the topic of regional planning agencies in Connecticut is not notable - they provide services very similar to county governments in other states. If you insist on deleting the list, which I do not believe is necessary, at least merge the data into another list of Connecticut towns. No other list has this data. –Zfish118⋉talk 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Merge to List of towns in Connecticut? It looks like all of the info is already there. But if not, an update may be in order.Ajpolino (talk) 17:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep and move. [Was "Merge"/redirect to List of towns in Connecticut, which includes a column for the regions.  See below about change of vote.] Odd the nominated list states there are nine regions, then lists eight regions.  The "List of towns in Connecticut" gives "no region" or something like that for several.  Some sorting out in the merge appears to be needed. --Doncram (talk) 08:28, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The regions in the town list link to articles about the geographic regions in general, not the functional regions with a coordinating body. The regional planning agencies are specific organizations that facilitate coordination and provide services to member towns. –Zfish118⋉talk 02:21, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, sounds like some informed editing of the list-article is called for, reflecting region of different types in oneor more columns. Sounds like town administrations are somewhat subordinate to the functional regional coordinating bodies, though I am not familiar with how important the regions are.  I do understand that counties in Connecticut are historic, no longer functional, not much worth mentioning.  Perhaps the list of towns could show the hierarchy, be default sorted by region first.  These are matters for editing, discussion at talk page, perhaps post notice at WikiProject Connecticut. --Doncram (talk) 04:21, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It is really the other way around: the regional bodies are subordinate to the member towns and cities, who choose a region based on the services provided. Services include regional disaster planning, transit planning/operation, land-use advice, and GIS/Mapping.  They are also needed to mediate federal transportation grants. –Zfish118⋉talk 14:43, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay I believe you. Indeed the suggested target list-article requires some sensitivity to describe the situation properly in the lede, and to label the one or two columns for region types properly.  Perhaps you are the person to contribute that.  :) --Doncram (talk) 23:15, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * On second thought, after some review of Wikipedia's coverage, what's needed is an article about Connecticut's regional bodies, and we have a good alternative to deletion available. Merging the info into the other list-article is not great, because the importance of the regional bodies needs to be developed somewhere more extensively than just in the lede of that list;  it would need to link to a list of the regional bodies or to separate articles about each one of them.  The regional bodies are not covered anywhere in Wikipedia yet AFAICT.  The Connecticut set of bodies should be covered, as are those of a number of other states/regions, linked at Council of governments.  The current article is unfortunately titled to be about Connecticut's towns (which are already listed elsewhere), when it could simply be retitled Regional Councils of Governments in Connecticut or similar, and developed a bit to include more introductory information about what the councils are, and perhaps some history of their development.  Including perhaps some commentary about how legal counties in Connecticut dropped out of existence, leading to this partial replacement.  If moved/retitled, it would actually be fine for each of its region sections to include the list of towns which define the region, although that information might better be conveyed more succinctly by a map such as available at the Connecticut OPM site about "Regional Councils of Governments in Connecticut", linked from the article.  So basically all that is needed for purpose of ending this AFD is to agree in principle to move the article to a different title (which can be quibbled about at the article's Talk page), and to tag it for further development.  This is much preferred as a wp:ATD (alternative to deletion) which would help Wikipedia grow productively. --Doncram (talk) 02:34, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. I don't think a separate article for each of the regional bodies is needed yet;  converting this article to a list of them with a section for each is a good substitute.  The article should be developed to include links to each of the separate regions' bodies, e.g. http://scrcog.org/ for the Southern region, http://crcog.org/ for the Capitol Region, etc.  Having  the main list with a section for each heads off creation of separate, weaker articles. --Doncram (talk) 02:43, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 02:31, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 *  Delete Comment- If someone provides a convincing explanation I may reconsider. Is the regional planning agency anything more than an association? I don't live (and never have lived) in Connecticut, so I don't know much about its local government. But it would seem to me that these "regional planning agencies" don't actually have any legislative authority over the towns, making their role very minor. If I am correct, a list of towns belonging to each region wouldn't have any significance.--Rusf10 (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * According to state statue, these bodies serve as analogs to county governments with regard to state, federal, and other grant monies. There is also an active petition to treat these bodies as county analogs at the Federal level. –Zfish118⋉talk 18:40, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * So are you saying that Connecticut doesn't have county governments? If so that changes everything.--Rusf10 (talk) 19:21, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * " County government was formally abolished by Public Act 152 during the 1959 legislative session for a variety of reasons most notably their ineffectiveness." RE: County Government Abolishment (OLR 1998). 24.151.116.12 (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Correct. Instead of separate county governments, we have councils of local governments that coordinate on a variety of regional matters. I created a separate list here at least in part because I am not familiar with how to efficiently edit tables on a large scale, such as those at List of Connecticut towns. If that technical step of merging the tables could be accomplished by someone, I would be more able to update and develop the content.  There is some base material for "Regional Planning" at Local government in Connecticut. –Zfish118⋉talk 18:14, 24 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep- As explained above, these are the defacto replacement for county governments. Maybe we also need the article Connecticut regional planning agency to explain how they work.--Rusf10 (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment - Apologies for being dense, but I remain confused. It looks as if the column "Region" in List_of_towns_in_Connecticut contains all of the information in List of Connecticut towns by regional planning agency (although maybe it's a bit out of date; at the very least it looks like that was the intention of that column). It's still not clear to me why we would maintain these two separate lists instead of just merging them. Certainly the wikilinks in the "Region" column of List_of_towns_in_Connecticut frequently have the wrong target (they frequently go to pages on geographic regions of CT instead of correctly targeting pages on the regional planning agencies), but shouldn't we just fix those wikilinks then? Maybe I'm just missing the distinction others are seeing here. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Ajpolino (talk) 20:32, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it may have started with a pre-2013 list of planning regions, but was improperly edited to include several informal regions such as "Quiet Corner" (which is a geographically significant area - just not a planning organization). The wiki-links are also completely scrambled, as "Central Connecticut" links to "Greater Hartford", when the original Central Connecticut planning region was actually focused on New Britain (Capital Region covers Hartford).  I do not strongly oppose merging, but care must be taken that the list of Councils of Governments not be corrupted once merged, and be made distinct from other regional designations. –Zfish118⋉talk 23:33, 26 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.