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[edit] Neighborhoods

Is there anybody here familiar with Buffalo neighborhoods? —The preceding comment was added by 64.252.7.134 (talk • contribs)

Not very, but I've heard of some of them. What do you need to know? LtPowers 21:23, 28 October 2011 (EDT)

It just seems like a city that could be expanded into districts. —The preceding comment was added by 64.148.1.164 (talk • contribs)

It could, but we would need a lot more information first. If we split it into districts now, they'd be mostly empty. LtPowers 14:13, 9 December 2011 (EST)

I am a resident of Buffalo who has been actively updating Buffalo's Wikitravel page over the past few days. I believe I can be of assistance in this matter as local history and culture are two of my areas of study. --AndreCarrotflower 00:50, 11 December 2011 (EST)

Sounds good. I'm not terribly familiar with Buffalo (never been) but have family roots there and I am intrigued by it and its history. I wish I could help. —The preceding comment was added by 64.252.3.199 (talk • contribs)

Please sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thanks! LtPowers 20:10, 16 December 2011 (EST)

I wonder if someone could offer some suggestions on editing the Eat section such that the MOS warning box can be removed. (Or if, perhaps, the issue has been fixed and the warning can be removed.) AndreCarrotflower 00:14, 28 January 2012 (EST)

I think it's safe to remove the style tag, particularly since no reason was provided for its inclusion. The list of restaurants is longer than is normal, and doesn't fit the standard "Budget", "Mid-range", "Splurge" breakdown, but neither of those are hard rules. That said, this article is getting long enough that some thought should be given to splitting it into districts - I don't know Buffalo at all, but the district-ification process typically involves someone with local knowledge providing a proposed division. That division should cover the entire city and have clear borders so that it would be easy to determine what goes where, and as long as there aren't concerns about the proposal then a break-up of the article into smaller pieces could then begin after a few days or weeks. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:54, 28 January 2012 (EST)

Certainly the Eat and Drink sections are getting quite lengthy, but the other sections are just about right for a Big City, especially if we were to move suburban listings to other articles. I'd be worried that districtification would dilute the See/Do/Buy/Sleep content too much. LtPowers 16:27, 28 January 2012 (EST)

I'd like to see the article district-ified at some point, especially since in my edits to the article, I have found myself compelled to omit minor information for the purposes of keeping things as short and succinct as possible. I feel I have the local knowledge available to get that process started. I also plan to break down the restaurant listings into budget/mid-range/splurge at some point. My apologies - I'm kind of "learning as I go" here. Hopefully I haven't made any huge mistakes. I will go ahead and remove the style tag now, with your blessing. AndreCarrotflower 20:25, 28 January 2012 (EST)

[edit] Proposal for dividing Buffalo article into districts

At right is my proposal for dividing the Buffalo, New York article into districts in accordance with the Huge City template. The image is based on an August 2009 Buffalo Rising article "Buffalo Neighborhoods: What Defines Them?" [1] with additions and alterations by me. I feel that each of these eight districts are the proper size to ensure the emergence of individual district articles that are robust without being overlong.

I eagerly await any suggestions or comments my fellow travellers may have.

AndreCarrotflower 01:32, 12 February 2012 (EST)

Without knowing more about Buffalo the proposal seems reasonable. The only concern I would have is whether it makes sense to have eight districts for a city of this size - would it be better to (for example) combine Allentown, Delaware and Elmwood for now, and re-consider splitting things up further in the future if necessary? -- Ryan • (talk) • 13:25, 12 February 2012 (EST)

If Allentown, Delaware and Elmwood were combined into a single article, it would easily be longer than all the other articles combined. For me, it might make more sense to combine some of the geographically larger districts that are mainly residential areas, but there's not a whole lot that (for example) the East Side and South Buffalo have in common with each other. As I alluded to above, there are many minor attractions and details that I omitted for the sake of brevity before it was suggested to me that the article might be divided. I am confident that there will be enough detail that I can add to fill out each of the articles. :) AndreCarrotflower 13:42, 12 February 2012 (EST)

Based on how fast this article has developed lately I'm fine with this proposal. I'd suggest giving it at least 5-7 days for further discussion before beginning any implementation as others may have suggestions or concerns, but for my part I think your approach sounds reasonable. -- Ryan • (talk) • 13:57, 12 February 2012 (EST)

I rarely venture inside the 190-290-90 loop myself, so I can't do much to back this up, but I also fear that the Elmwood, Delaware, and Allentown neighborhoods are too small for full district articles. Obviously, each has their own distinct character and probably a miles-long list of bars and cafes that locals swear by, but I'm worried that the granularity will be just a bit too fine for the average traveler. The neighborhoods, from what I can gather, strike me as analogous to the Park Ave/East Ave/Neighborhood of the Arts areas of Rochester, and I can't imagine making full district articles out of each of those. For a city the size of Buffalo, a division of five or six districts strikes me as more manageable for the traveler. If these three neighborhoods were discontiguous, I wouldn't argue, but since they're all adjacent to each other, they might work better as a single district... at least for now. (You may be interested in the discussion at Talk:Brooklyn#Districts, where the value of combining adjacent distinct neighborhoods into a single article is discussed.) LtPowers 14:45, 12 February 2012 (EST)

I understand your argument, LtPowers, and am inclined to agree in certain ways. I am quite sure that given the broad range of attractions in the Elmwood Village (i.e. the Museum District), a separate Elmwood district article could stand on its own as a well-rounded one, rather than merely a list of bars and restaurants. I am not 100% sure that the same could be said about Allentown and the Delaware Avenue district, but I nonetheless suspect that, if care is taken, there should be no problem with those either. I might be inclined to combine Allentown and Delaware into one district while leaving Elmwood separate, but the problem with that is these two neighborhoods are actually fairly dissimilar - Allentown is a loud, hip, youthful neighborhood dominated by restaurants and bars, where Delaware Avenue is a quiet, aristocratic residential district with impressive historic architecture, but not much in the way of nightlife. I have an idea: what if I drafted individual district articles for Allentown, Delaware, and the Elmwood Village as well as one for all three of them together as one, and presented each on the Talk page where we could compare them and hopefully come to a consensus? AndreCarrotflower 16:21, 12 February 2012 (EST)

Sometimes it makes sense to combine two neighborhoods into one district article, simply because they are adjacent, don't fit into other district articles, and cannot support a good article on their own. Some good examples of "two hoods, one district" that really just put the neighborhoods side by side:

• San Francisco/Chinatown-North Beach
• London/Holborn-Clerkenwell
• Brooklyn/Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush

I have written several of such articles, but usually try to find some way to unite them in the lede (e.g., Chicago/Bridgeport-Chinatown and Washington, D.C./Adams Morgan-Columbia Heights).

I don't know enough to comment on the particulars of the district boundaries, but the article is clearly ready for districting. I can comment on roughly how many districts it ideally would have, though, based on Wikitravel_talk:Geographical_hierarchy#Optimal_districts_schemes, and it looks like this might be a little much. The content/districts is actually pretty acceptable at 33,300 (6 articles, by combining the three as suggested above, would be an even better 44,400), but 8 districts for an American city of 200,000 would be unusual. Maybe the best comparison would be with Baltimore, which is a little more than twice the size and three times the population of Buffalo. It has 9 districts, but I would say its ideal number would actually be 8 (if it were possible to do so with a sensible breakdown). This is all just metrics, though—each city will have its own needs.

City	Total bytes	Districts	Other articles	Population	Land area	Bytes/district
Buffalo	266,384	8	0	.2 mil	105 km²	33,300

The last of poorly organized thoughts: looking at what has already been broken down, it definitely seems that Delaware District shouldn't get its own article, at least until there is much more content for it. --Peter ^Talk 16:26, 13 February 2012 (EST)

Thank you, Peter - I think I understand better now. Given my aforementioned comments about the Elmwood Village's wealth of attractions and my concerns about the length of the full Elmwood/Delaware/Allentown article, and given your comments, would it be an acceptable course of action to combine Delaware and Allentown into their own article while keeping Elmwood a separate one, as I suggested above, for a total of 7 districts? AndreCarrotflower 00:54, 14 February 2012 (EST)

That sounds reasonable to me. If you have the gung ho energy in you, I would encourage you to go ahead. Strike while the iron's hot! --Peter ^Talk 22:59, 15 February 2012 (EST)

Excellent. I have revised the map I created and linked to above to reflect the seven-district schema. I will wait two to three days before proceeding further, in order to allow for any final concerns or other bits of input. AndreCarrotflower 09:44, 16 February 2012 (EST)

How much content is there in the North and West districts? Any point in trying to combine them? (Just throwing out an idea.) Also, have you given consideration to adding a selection of photos to the article? Buffalo has long been in need of a quality lead photo, for instance, and it'd be awesome of each of the districts could start life with a good photo at the top. LtPowers 20:29, 16 February 2012 (EST)

I'm quite sure that both of those articles will stand on their own quite well, especially North Buffalo. North Buffalo has Hertel Avenue, Parkside, University Heights, the Zoo, and the Parkside Lodge. The West Side has the Buffalo Religious Arts Center, riverfront parks, a few B&Bs, shopping along Grant Street, and some architectural stuff that I haven't gotten around to yet. In the district articles, I plan to elaborate greatly on the Architecture section of the current article - perhaps something like itineraries for self-guided walks down Delaware Avenue or through Parkside.

Funny that you should mention photographs, as I am an amateur photographer whose work focuses on local architecture and urban scenes. I did not open my Wikitravel Shared account until I uploaded the districtification proposal map, so I fully plan on including some of those.

AndreCarrotflower 23:52, 16 February 2012 (EST)

[edit] Reversion question

Swept in from the pub

I've had to revert this edit three times already, and so I'm reluctant to do so again, but I can't figure out why this is being removed. Any thoughts? LtPowers 19:06, 16 September 2011 (EDT)

It's not clear why the original text is being removed, so provided the info isn't incorrect then your revert seems fine. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:35, 16 September 2011 (EDT)

The user in question left a note on my talk page explaining the deletion. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:53, 16 September 2011 (EDT)

Odd that he did so for you but not for me. The explanation is also unsatisfying, for reasons I explained on your talk page. LtPowers 09:06, 17 September 2011 (EDT)