User:Joseph R P/City classification proposals (West)

Listed below are the places in Nevada that I personally believe should be cities, based on their population, prominence, notability, amenities, and more. The purpose of this page is to get opinions from others and to get place classification consistence within the aforementioned states.

For the time being, the page is complete with any future changes being things that were discussed to change and copy edits. In the future, I may also include towns as well as more states. Please let me know about anything that needs clarification.

Personal criteria for city classification

Primary factors

The two following factors, when both equally considered when classifying place and observed more than the other factors further down in the list, will help you identify which places are the most significant in a region.

• Population

The population of a place is one of the more obvious factors for classifying a place as a city. For example, if a town has a population of 45,000 while the other close-by towns have around 10-20,000 residents, the former may be a good candidate for city classification, so long as it is noticeably more important than the others. Although many (perhaps even the majority) users around the US consider the minimum population required for city classification to be 50,000, however, this is not explicitly stated in the page for tag:place=city. As a result, there are many city-classified places, especially in states west of the Mississippi River, which have populations as low as 3,000.

(This can't be decided by me and needs to be agreed upon by everyone interested in place classification.) Personally, I believe that the minimum population of a place classified as a city should depend on how urban or rural it is and should be as followed:

- For very remote communities, which might be about half of a day's worth of driving/a train ride away from the next city, this minimum should be around 3,000, as long as the place has important amenities like all schools from elementary schools to colleges, an airport, a train station, a hospital, and a downtown area. There are very few areas in the US where a community would be considered remote, however, and are usually in states like Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, etc.

- For rural communities, this minimum should be around 8,000, as long as the place isn't overshadowed by another nearby town with a much higher population. A community like this will usually be found in states like Nebraska, the Dakotas, Kansas, etc. as well as some northeastern states.

- For exurban or suburban communities, this minimum should be around 15,000, particularly applying to the most prominent and notable places in a suburban metro area. Ex.: Boulder City.

- For urban communities close to or bordering a much more major city, this minimum should be around 75,000, particularly applying to communities that aren't very prominent compared to the nearby city but still large, populous, and notable. Ex.: North Las Vegas, Henderson, and Sparks.

• Prominence

Less-considered than the population when classifying places is the prominence (i.e. how much it sticks out in compared to the other nearby surrounding communities). Ask yourself this, which would you make the city here; the lesser-populated (pop. of 25k), more-notable, community with a proper city center and a higher density or the more-populated (pop. of 75k), less-notable, suburban sprawl community with a standard shopping center at its crossroads? Situations like this exist between places such as Gaithersburg and Germantown in Maryland and Manassas and Dale City in Virginia.

Secondary factors

"Secondary factors" are the classification factors that I consider to be less important then the above primary factors and won't be considered all the time when classifying places. These might end up being tiebreakers most of the time.

• Amenities

This will most likely only apply to rural communities, but if a place has the largest or the only airport, college, train station, hospital, etc. within a very remote area, that place may warrant city classification to indicate it's the most important community in the whole area.

• Location

If the place is located at junction between two major highways or railroads or maybe at an important port, that may add some significance to it.

• Notability

If you ever run into the situation where you had two similarly-populated places and where looking to classify one as a city and the other as a town, the one which may be more well-known out-of-state or even international or the most historically-significant may be the one to upgrade. However, not all well-known places should be a city if the less-know nearby place is much larger in population and has a higher prominence.

• Size

The area size of a place maybe also be a deciding factor in upgrading a place to city, but not all very-large places are highly-populated or prominent.

Nevada

• Carson City (capital city; p. 55k)

Reason: Significantly populous, prominent, notable, and large in size, also the capital city of the state

• Elko (city; p. 20k)

Reason: Not very populous, but still the most populous, prominent, and important city in the entirety of Northeastern Nevada

• Henderson (city; p. 310k)

Reason: Very populous, notable, and large in size

• Las Vegas (city; p. 645k)

Reason: The most populous, prominent, and notable city in the state

• Mesquite (city; p. 19k)

Reason: Not very populous, but more populous and prominent than other nearby places as well as the fastest-growing

• North Las Vegas (city; p. 247k)

Reason: Not very prominent, but very populous, large in size, and notable

• Reno (city; p. 251k)

Reason: The most populous, prominent, large in size, and notable city in Northwestern Nevada

• Sparks (city; p. 103k)

Reason: Not very prominent, but very populous, large in size, and notable

Debatable

• Boulder City (city; p. 16k)

Boulder City is currently tagged as a city, but there could be an argument to have this downgraded to town due to its close proximity to larger cities. However, it does still retain a significant population compared to other Nevada cities as well as being a somewhat prominent, notable, and important place for its location at a major highway junction and the nearby Hoover Dam.

• Ely (city; p. 4k)

Ely is currently tagged as a town, but, considering how it's the most populous and prominent city along US 50 east of Fallon and US 93 north of Las Vegas, maybe it could be classified as a city. However, it is overall a still small place.

• Fallon (city; p. 9k)

Fallon is currently tagged as a town, and while it's not very populous, it is more prominent than Fernley, Silver Springs, and Yerington as well as the most important in the area, as it has a proper city center while Fernley and Silver Springs lack such, is also located at an important highway junction and near a major military base. However, Fernley has a lot more amenities and is more of an important travel stop as it is located along an Interstate, which might overshadow Fallon in terms of significance.

• Pahrump (CDP; p. 38k)

Pahrump is currently tagged as a town, and while it lacks any sort of proper city center, it is very populous for a rural exurb of Las Vegas.