Talk:Nashville-Davidson (balance), Tennessee

• Previous deletion debate

What the balance corresponds to

The balance of Nashville-Davidson would have to correspond to the former City of Nashville as in the past it said that the balance corresponded to the former City of Nashville. Plus Kaldari's drawings of Davdison County are not quite accurate. The satellite cities didn't just correspond to the selected areas of the county but other areas of the county. In fact the satellite cities incorporate large portions of Davidson County that there is still enough room for the former City of Nashville to be corresponded by the balance. Also the drawing of the former City of Nashville wasn't quite accurate. The former city was wider and larger than the drawing. The former city incorporated almost all of Davidson County even before the formation of the controversial Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County in 1963 meaning that there was almost no unincorporated area in Davidson County. Anyway for any Nashvillians out there Nashville is not fully coextensive with Davidson County since other municipalities exist in the county and as people who live in the non-Nashville cities of Davidson County consider there homelands independent of the Nashville city limits and the balance corresponding to the former City of Nashville. Also, fuck Mayor Purcell. He's a dickhead. -- Heegoop, 17 February 2006 (UTC).

Thank you for explaining your position. Until I can dig up a map of the City of Nashville from the 50s or early 60s, I'll accept your explanation and let it stand. One question remains, however: Why do you want this article listed as a City of Tennessee? Kaldari 03:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

At Kaldari's request, I'll weigh in with what I can recall. The current Census definition of the "balance" is that portion of Davidson County that is not a part of any other incorporated municipality at the time of the census. I honestly have no idea how closely it matches the boundaries of the City of Nashville at the time of consolidation. I did a fair amount of research back when this article had been proposed for deletion, but I don't recall whether I looked at any historical maps or if there was some textual description of the areas involved. FWIW, I don't think this article should be in the cities in Tennessee category as it is only a stub for the demographics of a portion of a consolidated government. older ≠ wiser 20:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Map of the Nashville area in 1960, prior to consolidation

The Nashville-Davidson balance does not even come close to corresponding with the old City of Nashville. Prior to the formation of the consolidated city-county government, the city of Nashville only legally encompassed the area roughly inside what is now Interstate 440. That's a tiny area compared to the Nashville-Davidson balance. According to the 1960 census (3 years before the consolidation), the area of the City of Nashville was 23.3 square miles. Compare that with the Nashville-Davidson balance at 497 square miles. Thus the Nashville-Davidson balance is over 20 times the size of the old City of Nashville! Immediately before the consolidation, Nashville annexed an additional 42 square miles, but even then that only put the city at 65 square miles total. If you need to confirm these facts, please go to your local library and have them pull up the Tennessee Census records for 1960. I will post some maps I photographed at the library later. Pretty much everything Heegoop says above is completely wrong. Heegoop, I would like to know why you were so insistent on including information in this article for which you had no evidence whatsoever. Even though I went out of my way to draw diagrams and post lengthy explanations about why the information was wrong, you insisted on having it your way (often without any explanation). So instead of doing research on more interesting subjects for Wikipedia, I spent the day at the library digging up census records so that I could prove a simple fact that I already knew to be true. At least now the issue is settled for good. In the future, I would suggest that you stop assuming that you are right without at least having some kind of evidence to back it up. To do otherwise is a breach of WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:AGF. I would suggest you read over those policies before starting an edit war in the future. Kaldari 19:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding this edit: The definition of the balance has nothing to do (directly) with the old City of Nashville. There is no reason to even mention the old City of Nashville in this article. In fact, it is entirely plausable that there are areas of the old City of Nashville that are now not included in the balance (if any of the satelite cities have expanded inwards since 1963). If we wanted to make a list of what the current balance corresponded to in 1960 we would not only mention the City of Nashville, but also 11 unincorporated urban areas, and a dozen or so unincorporated suburbs (which now all have different boundaries than they did in 1960 anyway). This would be a pointless exercise, as the list would be an approximation at best and limited only to a comparison of 1960s Davidson County. What would be a lot more useful would be a map of what the current balance looks like (then people could do their own comparisons and choose any time period they wanted). But even then, I can't imagine why this would be useful to anyone. The only people who use the balance are the Census Bureau, and while I'm sure they would be appreciative that we had made a map for them, I don't see how anybody else on the face of the earth would even care. Kaldari 22:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The reason for mentioning it is to precisely clarify the sort of misunderstanding that we've been discussing. I'd find it extremely unlikely that any of the satellite cities could have incorporated any land that used to be a part of the old city of Nashville. If you can provide any evidence of that, I'd be interested to see it. If you want to add more information to clarify what this area corresponded to, please feel free. But I am going to revert your reversion of my earlier edit. Cheers. older ≠ wiser 23:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In response to your first argument: The only reason there was confusion was because you added false (and unsourced) information to the article back in 2004 and no one ever bothered to remove it. In response to your second argument I would like to quote the Wikipedia policy on Verifiability: "Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable source, or it may be removed by any editor. The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it." If you would like to add that information to the article, please cite a reference explaining where the information comes from. It is not acceptable to just make your own assertions and insert them into articles. That is a violation of the Original Research and Verifibility policies. And on a third point, I think your version of the intro is more confusing, not less, than the simple definition of the balance. For example, it says that the balance includes areas "not a part of any other incorporated municipality", but it doesn't explain that "other" refers to Nashville. It also leads you to believe that at the time of consolidation Davidson County consisted only of the City of Nashville, the current satellite cities, and unincorporated areas. This is not true. Kaldari 23:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. You seem to have taken "ownership" of this article and I really don't care a whit about Nashville, so you can have it your way. The definition of the balance not including other incorporated municipalities is based on Census use of the term. older ≠ wiser 14:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

True, but the way you had it worded was not completely clear. It said "other incorporated municipalities", but other than what? I know that you meant "other than Nashville", but it didn't say that explicitly. Regardless, figuring out what the balance corresponded to in pre-consolidation geography is original research as I have not been able to find any references for it. In case anyone wants to figure it out though, I have now uploaded both a map of the balance and a map of 1960s Nashville, so hopefully that should clear up any confusion. Kaldari 17:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Brentwood

I have added Brentwood to the list of what the balance excludes in order to be consistant with the Davidson County and Brentwood, Tennessee articles. I do not have any evidence that Brentwood lies partially in Davidson County, but I'm going to take Blueboy96's word on it for now. If anyone knows whether this is correct or not, let me know. Kaldari 23:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Blueboy96 was wrong, none of Brentwood lies in Davidson County:

• "All of incorporated Brentwood lies in Williamson County." - Joe Lassus, Planning & Codes Director, City of Brentwood
• "The City of Brentwood has no jurisdiction over any areas of Davidson Co and never can due to the prohibition of annexation inside an area with Metro government." - Mike Walker, City Manager, City of Brentwood

Kaldari 15:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)