Talk:Pacific Northwest/Archive2

This is an archive of past discussions about Pacific Northwest. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Could really use some pre-colonization history.Murderbike 21:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please add Victoria, BC, to the map? It's the capital of the province and certainly worth noting as a cultural centre and important political entity. -Jackmont, Jun 27, 2007.

While we're at it, is anyone is, labels ought to be added for Olympia, Washington, Bellingham, Washington, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Bremerton, Washington, and Centralia, Washington / Chehalis, Washington. I'll try to get to it if I can find the time and energy. Pfly 08:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

sfasdfasdfasdf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tiko1234 (talk • contribs) 23:47:49, August 18, 2007 (UTC). (partisan comment deleted)

I am not from the area, but is this region actually referred to as a "megacity"? It stretches over 300 miles including plenty of rural areas. With this definition, Ohio would be a 'megacity' along with most eastern states. -Cretzler, Mar 14, 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.67.105.251 (talk) 01:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The concept of a megacity, when it surfaces, is used only to refer to the I-5 corridor, including Vancouver and by extension Victoria and Nanaimo. The Pacific Northwest is considerably larger; the "megacity" is sometimes referred to as the "Evergreen Triangle" but that's more a reference to the IT economy/infrastructure than it is to culture/identity/urbanity. There is something like a megacity, but it's a strip-mall equivalent, very linear, and not a "web" like Ohio or the Bay Area....Skookum1 (talk) 02:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've heard the term used regionally quite a bit, esspecially in reference to Vancouver, WA - Eugene, OR (where I live, which is Eugene). Keep in mind that sometimes the regional terms for things are not the most scientific. Ohio is about the same population as the entire PNW, haha. However, my main point in this section is that Eugene definitely needs to be included. Eugene is larger than Salem (usually), an education centre for the region, a highly influential city culturally, and is within the Willamette River valley. Uoregonduckman (talk) 10:20, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

As a Portlander, I mostly hear the term I-5 corridor, but within the context of the Pacific Northwest it's pretty universally understood to extend from Vancouver, British Columbia, down to Ashland, Oregon. -Kudzu1 (talk) 02:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Does the Pacific Northwest include the Yukon and Canada's Pacific waters? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.105.206.222 (talk) 20:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

"Canada's Pacific waters" are otherwise known as the British Columbia Coast, which is how people especially from the region use it; using the national-tag is, to me, unfamiliar and stragne sounding; as if Canada had more to do with the management of the coast's fisheries and so on than they ever bother to....Whatever; BC and the Alaska Panhandle are definitely in the traditional Pacific Northwest; the Yukon has become inclueed as an extension of same; much more legitimately than Alberta, in fact, as the Yukon's origin depended on the Pacific Northwest. This used to be explainedd in the variable/shifting definitions section whatever it's called now.Skookum1 (talk) 15:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Needs to reflect the region-wide extremely low church attendance, high rates of atheism and (comparatively) small political power of Christian right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.226.198.59 (talk) 05:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Adding statements regarding the high rates of atheism without comparison and without citations is the sort of alteration that generally gets termed vandalism at wikipedia, particularly when the changes are made by an unregistered user. If you, User:63.226.198.59 are serious about improving articles in Wikipedia, please consider becoming a registered user, and then laboring to offer citations for your statements of fact. JStripes (talk) 20:22, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have the citations I'm sure the first contributor has, but I am from the Northwest have repeatedly heard these same kinds of statistics. Perhaps someone could research in a neutral way? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.145.231.158 (talk) 03:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems like this new addition is repeating stuff elsewhere in the article already, and with more editorialized writing, too, but further to this it's US-only content; not that BC doesn't have its share of weirdness, it's just I"m amazed at the "the world ends at the border" mentality; you may have Ramtha but we had Brother XII? C'mon, BC has WAshington hands down on the weirdness quotient; YOU have never had a Bill Vander Zalm, for instance. Anyway I realize this was just an IP address users attempt to reflect something about the area the corporate-Cascadia p.r. offfice would rather silence once and for all, but if it's going to be there could there by some effort to cross-borderize it????Skookum1 (talk) 15:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, agreed -Al —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.8.115 (talk) 01:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Would welcome some Canadian contribution to the section, and think it's an important aspect of the local culture and worldview that ought to be respected and preserved in the entry. - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.101.39 (talk) 09:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The last time I looked at a map, the "Pacific Northwest" lead me to the north-western United States, not north-western North America: that would be Alaska. Yes, we in SW British Columbia often (but not always!) use the term to include the Canadian south-west but, geographically speaking, to say "a region in the northwest of North America" (as it does in the article's header) is incorrect. Dionix (talk) 18:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Draw a big cross through North America. PNW is north of one line, west of the other. What's the problem? (Maybe the article should describe the region's location better in the lead, but there's nothing inaccurate about the current phrasing.) -Pete (talk) 18:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

That's too simplistic and ignores the political and cultural baggage associated with the term, which originally referred only to the NW of the contiguous US. Extending the term to coincide with the Cascadian watershed also ignores the history of the term. By the way, try to tell someone in Fort St. John they live in the PNW :) Dionix (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Dionix you're so totally wrong it's embarrassing. The term surfaced in ethnography and linguistics before the creation of the Oregon Country, for pity's sake (e.g. the "Pacific Northwest Sprachbund", coined I think in the 1830s or '40s or so); it pre-dates the creation of Canada as well as the acquisition/annexation of the southern Oregon Country by the United States. You'll find it in both American and British Columbian sources from the 1850s and '60s; the truth seems always hamstrung between American "territorial myopia" on the one hand and Central Canadian chauvinism on the other ("Canadian Southwest" is one horrible mash-up I've seen to replace PacNW when referring to BC). Figure it out - "Northwest Coast" + "Pacific Slope", but I don't think even that etymology/contraction is necessary; there's no way the Alaska Panhandle can be in the Pacific Northwest (and people there consider themselves to be so...) without BC being also. And if you do some legwork you'll find all kidns of in-BC usages of Pacific Northwest meaning/including BC; they're not wrong, the US definitions an the Canadian chauvinist views ARE. And don't cite the Canadian Encyclopedia at me - it's not authoritative when it comes to BC - anything but; it's from the other side of the Rockies and is mired in Canuck-think. Aside from abundant press and journalistic examples of the including-BC usage there's also lots of organizations/chapters and businesses which use PacNW in their names or bumpf/descriptions to include BC - many are BC-based in fact. Hearing this all the time is really boring/frustrating.....apparently it's going to recur unless people start reading the talkpage before opining about it. Maybe a "box" at the top of the talkpage about this subject would help....19:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've gone off on a tangent. I'm not saying the PNW does not include BC (Of course it does). I'm saying it's not the NW of North America. Period. Dionix (talk) 19:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

And that has to do with WHAT? I think you're picking hairs; "Northwest" is clearly north and it's clearly west; it's clearly "northwest" unless you want to pick hairs about where the geographic centre of the continent is, but that's just even more of a crock as, for human-habitation/use purposes, the northern third of the continent is, well, uninhabitable for the most part. The language of the intro is FINE. What else would you want it to say? - "it's not actually northwest in terms of pure geographic definition, but really Central Pacific Coast?" - or what?? Gimme a break and don't waste time with useless nit-picks and non sequiturs.Skookum1 (talk)

Geesh, you certainly woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I'm not picking hairs- pull out an atlas and look at it objectively. And by the way, this is WP: we are all wasting time. Dionix (talk) 21:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

IT LOOKS TO ME, like you should be using this type of historical info in proper context and its own place on the page, which would be in the HISTORY section. NOT the current usage and designation and boundary delineation section. since the designation PNW has obviously been used to designate different areas at different times! Meat Eating Orchid (talk) 22:26, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I read with amusement the latest edit substituting Surrey BC for Boise as teh fourth largest city in the Pacific Northwest; in fact there are a number of BC cities larger than 211,000 (Boise's population or thereabouts). I think the wording of the paragraph might be better served by "metropolitan area" isntead of "city" but even then Victoria is far larger than Boise as well.....Skookum1 (talk) 20:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if that would be good to go here, but everwhere I look within the Northwest the 2010 Service Inititive is there. Basically it is local PWN businesses preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics - not sure if its a Chamber or exactly what it is.

It's connected to some kind of crossborder government/corporate initiative to make dough off the Games; it's caused a bit of controversy in BC because some outsourcing has gone to Washington companies; can't remember all the details of the hoo-hah but there's some in the comments forum at the end of this article. In a sense it's an extension of the overall egional govenrment interaction that is the non-trendy manifestation of the Cascadia movement, and also laying the ground for the 2020 (?) Seattle-Vancouver joint summer Olympics bid.....but exactly what kind of body it is, legally, that's a good questionSkookum1 (talk) 19:06, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't source this, I haven't even bothered looking for sources, but surely the San Francisco area is considered a part of the Pacific Northwest in some definitions? -MichiganCharms (talk) 07:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Only when it wants to be trendy; Fort Bragg is sometimes considered the absolute southern limit, and Eureka is generally conceded just because of the similar climate to areas northwards....Skookum1 (talk) 05:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Spanish during the days of the Nootka Crisis considered the Pacific Northwest to be California...(I've even got a cite for that, though I'd have to dig it out....).Skookum1 (talk) 06:01, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The most obnoxious mountain pass on all of Interstate 5 is at the Oregon border, and near there the flora changes significantly making the Oregon/California border the logical demarcation line. You leave the Douglas Fir country and enter the Redwood country if you are closer to the coast. Possibly the Klamath basin is ambigious, but once you get to Mt. shasta going south you are following the Sacramento River, and there is nothing pacific NW about the Sacramento River.Rvannatta (talk) 00:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

San Francisco is California. It's culturally, geographically, and linguistically different. Not to mention, it's in the southern half of the US. Uoregonduckman (talk) 10:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

that surprises me taht Vancouver is (now) larger than Seattle; it was for a long time the other way around. But this:

The region's biggest cities are Vancouver, British Columbia; Seattle, Washington; and Portland, Oregon.

Got me thinking that maybe it would be better to name them as metropolitan areas - better as in more realistic, and also more how joe-blow thinks about cities; i.e. not by strict boundaries but by agglomeration. In which case SeaTac-Everett is of course the largest.....Skookum1 (talk) 05:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

A major divide in political opinion separates the region's greatly more populous urban core and Western rural areas from its less populated Eastern rural areas. The former - especially in the cities of Vancouver, Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Portland, Corvallis and Eugene - is one of the most politically liberal parts of North America, consistently supporting left-wing political candidates and causes by significant majorities, while the latter tends to be more conservative and consistently supports right-wing candidates and causes (though it should be noted that the religious right has far less influence throughout the region than elsewhere the U.S.).

I've had a problem with that section for a while...I'll try and amend it slowly but here's some points, at least relating to the BC side of things, I can't speak for the suburbs and regions of the US part but I imagine there's similar...such as enclaves of right-wing voters in the coastal corridor; or which in BC's case is the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley adn the western and northwestern extremities of same; the pretense of this article is the funky ecotopian/cascadian vision of what makes the PacNW distinct...but the right-wing elements are also unique; this especially concerning the Social Credit and Liberal Parties in BC, although maybe USians might think those are left-wing names (they're not); Social Credit, yes, did nationalize things but their ethic was hard-right, even more Reaganite than Reagan, and they're a BC invention, distinct from other Social Credit. Likewise the curiosity known as the BC Liberals, actually an alliance of federal Reform/Alliance/Tories and upstarts, ncluding hte fundamentalist element. Parties aside the political geography of BC isn't as simple as Coast/Interior or major urban/small urban. Certain parts of the Interior, North and Coast are decidedly NDP (socialist/social democrat/unionist) or have been in the past until various changes in the polity further polarized things; one thing I will add for sure is a a cmoment about the historical polarization and exteeme politics - and colourful politicians - in BC, historically and currently; in terms of the Lower Mainland as mentioned above, areas like Richmond, Delta, the west side of Vancouver, all of the North Shore and the "Bible Belt" from Surrey out through Chilliwack are famously right-wing, even umnder years of NDP rule (except for Point Grey and one of the North Shore ridings). In the Interior the Kootenays, particularly the West Kootenay are notable for left wing/eco-social politics, the Okanagan for hard right-wing voting adn ideologues (it's where Social Credit was based, in the form of WAC Bennett and his son and conenctions). The North Coast because of the heavy union presence (forestry/mills and at one time fishing) is historically very left-wing because unionist, until resource issues polarized resource workers against the envinrmoental policies and power base of the NDP (a major issue iwthin that party for years); likewise in the mining country the Elk Valley has been solidly socialist since 1900 or so, though again changes in the resource polity have maybe rearranged that; Cranbrook on the other hand is historically fairly right-wing. Lately the Interior and North have been right-wing bastions though; and the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver both have a lot of "swing" areas; we always say up here that the broad tolerant middle is caught between two hardcore and mutually hostile ideologies on either end of the political spectrum; and each of the main parties have powerful extermist elements within their ranks as well as their members and candidates; likewise Vancouver Island has regular areas of NDP support vs regular areas of Social Credit-cum-Liberal support; the rise of hte Green Party and the chances of ending FPTP voting in BC might also be mentioned, and the many fringe parties and "rumps"; oen thing that does distinguish BC voetrs historically is their readiness to vote one way federally and another way provincially; that's changed since a rapprochement between the BC liberals an the federal party; that's very citable and "all over the place" as a common observation of BC's political culture, likewise the polarization and "eclectic" policies and candidates; whether 'its Svend Robinson or [[Pat McGeer][ or Bill Vander Zalm or Glen Clark, never mind the curent cast or characters and their hangers-on. The prominent role of First Nations politics in public affairs in BC is also worth noting; not just unresolved landclaims but the various land-use arrangements/negotiations going on re industry and preservation locations around the provoince. This is a lot to try and merge in obviously, and while it's all citable I don't have the time; and don't want to overburden the article; basically teh fundamentalist and religious right cannot be written off as far as Vancouver/Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island's urban regions (part of the "corridor", really, though separated by water); similarly the Sunshine Coast is rural but left-wing in nature, or has been, likewise the Gulf Islands. That's all i've got stomach for, and I've tried to be as NPOV as possible in my rundown; basic stuff is the Bible Belt, the West Kootenay and the mining/forestry NDP spuport in "rural regions"; the Okaangan as right wing, the Shuswap and Columbia not necessarily; the Boundary and Similkameen were also left-wing bastions because of mining for years; fedrally, again, all this is different....Skookum1 (talk) 04:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Once again, and I hesitate to get into major changes to the article, but there's evidently a wide divide between political geography within BC and south of the line; nothing is so clear-cut in BC as presented in teh article; the "urban core" includes dark-blue conservative areas like West Van, Oak Bay, Shaughnessy; Point Grey and North Van have liberal elements; but the urban core in BC would also include Kelowna, Kamloops and Prince George - all hard-core conservative in nature. The urban core in BC also includes Richmond, Surrey, Langley - again diehard conservative and also religious (not as common/politically manifested in BC as in the US, not at all, though some are trying....); sure, define them as suburban if you want but Vancouver's suburbs also include staunch NDP(leftist) areas on the north bank of the river, and the city of New Westmihnster, and Burnaby and so on; Victoria is a swing city, capable of voting any which way. I htink the politics section would be bvest servedby commonalities rathe than trying to define what seem like ordinary/natural things on the US side of hte border; the ydon't translate well northweards. The Kootenays remain a core leftist area, though the East Kootenay less so in recent years; the Bulkley Valley-Hazelton-Skeena also has strong NDP roots, likewise Prince George; big-L Liberal Party in BC, federally, was rooted in places like Kamloops and Nelson as well as in North Van and Victoria and Point Grey; our current so-called Liberal Party is hard-right however....anyway generalities about polticis 'for the region should not be made if they contradict the BC reality; that's all I'm really sayng; but how to take out what's in, or endlessly put "on the American side of the border" in various ways, remains a problem; inter-regional poiics such as salmon, trees and water seem more important than trying to discuss political geography....Skookum1 (talk) 23:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, in the politics section, it says (or at least implies) that the Sea-Tac area is uniquely "radical" by PNW standards. I think you'd find that a hard arguement to make, considering the FBI had two offices in Oregon alone just to combat the radical environmentalist movement in the late 90's and early 00's. Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey claimed Eugene was the anarchist capital of the country, and anyone who knows Portland knows it's no less radical (if not more) than Sea-Tac area. Was this just someone who was from the sound area and didn't realise that all of the western US portion of the PNW is quite radical left?? (no changes made, sort of seeing if people agree with me on this) Uoregonduckman (talk) 10:27, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

It's always dangerous to try to generalize politics. Now, I'll try. If you look at the results of the last presidentnial election, you will see the Cascade mountain range generally dividing the population with the more populous western area supporting Obama. If you look at Particularly Oregon with aa more powerful lens, it's not uncommon to see the 6 most popoulus counties in Western Oregon voting on the liberal side with large majorities in Portland and urban Eugene and the other 30 counties voting otherwise. Similarly a heavily liberal urbanized population in the Greater Seattle area dominates the political posture of Washington stateRvannatta (talk) 05:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Similarly, the recent provincial election results in British Columbia and others before it demonstrate that urbanized regions are not necessarily liberal in character - just to clarify that in those results the BC Liberal Party is not a liberal movement, rather an arch-neoconservative one and not simply centre-right/left as is the national Liberal Party and Liberal Parties in the other Canadian provinces. The west and south sides of Vancouver, and the North Shore, are long-time conservative strongholds, previously voting Social Credit, Conservative or Reform/Alliance (all right-wing parties). A couple of Burnaby ridings and the majority of suburban ridings south of the Fraser River and also on the north side voted BC Liberal, and typically vote Conservative federally (except for the north side of the Fraser ridings, and Burnaby, which historically have been NDP (social democrat). Similarly in Greater Victoria there are a number of neo/conservative bastions, especially Oak Bay. In the Interior, also, many areas are historically left-leaning, notably the West Kootenay and Skeena, and some ridings (electoral districts) are "swing" in character - Boundary-Similkameen (to the north of Okanogan County), the Cariboo ridings and what is now Fraser-Nicola and also Kamloops, which is now two ridings (Kamloops until its partition for this election is the "bellwether" riding, almost always winding up on the government bench. The Island, other than Oak Bay and Nanaimo-Parksville, is also typically NDP historically.Skookum1 (talk) 14:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't really call the BC Liberals neoconservatives. They are much more moderate than the federal Conservatives are. If you really wanted a neocon party in BC, the BC Conservatives are very neoconservative. I would put the BC Liberals to the right of the federal Liberals and to the left of the federal Conservatives. I would agree that urban areas of BC are not necessarily liberal, the west side of Vancouver almost always sides with the BC Liberals/Socreds in the previous elections.

Which means it's not small-l liberal in the slightest; the BC Liberals are clearly the heirs to the Socreds, they just stole the party name once a genuine moderate (Gordon Wilson) managed to re-establish them; after his predecessors merged with the Socreds, no less. While there may be some moderates in the BC Liberals, the cast of major characters are ALL neoconservatives (Campbell, Coleman, van Dongen, Les, all the Okanagan MLAs, Bill Bennett in East Kootenay, the two PG ones, Rustad in Nechako Lakes. They're NOT "liberals" - i.e. in the sense that our American friends are using the term, which is clearly Democrat and/or "left".Skookum1 (talk) 00:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Re this:

The Georgia Strait-Puget Sound basin is shared between British Columbia and Washington, and the Pacific temperate rain forests ecoregion, which is the largest of the world's temperate rain forest ecozones, stretch along the coast from Alaska to California.

The Pacific temperate rain forests ecoregion article does not state which ecoregion system it's from, likewise Temperate rain forest ecozone; is that the WWF system, or the EPA/CEC/Environment Canada one? Ecoregion and ecozone articles/lists differ, there's a lot of straightening out to be done there; applying one designation in favour over another is a somewhat POV issue.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I just removed a self-serving plug by Matt Briggs, or someone promoting his books, as if they were important to the culture of cannabis use; and placed appropriate notability, coi tags etc on his page....but it did get me thinking about "notable literary figures" whose writing "embodies" the Pacific Northwest; among Canadians the names Timothy Findley, Susan Musgrave and Robin Skelton came to mind immediately, though others such as Earle Birney and Terry Glavin also qualify in their respective fields, among many notable "regional writers"; among Americans the first big names that popped to mind were Thomas Pynchon and Tom Robbins, though I'm sure there are more. Some bar must be established here as there's no need to make a huge list, just those towards the top; important regional historians like Bancroft and Howay are worth their own sublisting.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the table from the article until it can be adjusted to properly incorporate cities from both sides of the border. The article outlines the PN region as including both Canada and the U.S. Presenting a table exclusively featuring US cities is therefore confusing, especially since the earlier prose in the article lists Vancouver etc. Can it go back - of course, but it needs to be properly filled out first. For starters, Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Abbotsford, Victoria, and so on should replace other smaller US cities from the list. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Katz's arbitrary actions are very unfortunate and damage the article and the collegial process that has been at work here. He should have discussed this first--and editors would have explained how difficult it is to compare populations in US and Canada because of different definitions and dates, and thus the need for at least two tables. Katz without thinking about it has tried to impose his rule that there can be only one unified table, and partial tables will be erased or moved by him, but it appears he is unwilling to any actual work on it himself. Rjensen (talk) 07:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not difficult to compare the populations of the cities in the Pacific Northwest. Both the US and Canada have estimates for 2009, and I have updated the table to reflect this.  єmarsee  • Speak up! 07:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Largest cities in the Pacific Northwest

Rank	City	State	Population (2009 estimate)	Metro Area
1	Vancouver	British Columbia	628,621	2,318,526
2	Seattle	Washington	617,334	3,407,848
3	Portland	Oregon	582,130	2,217,325
4	Surrey	British Columbia	446,561	2,318,526
5	Burnaby	British Columbia	222,802	2,318,526
6	Boise	Idaho	205,314	585,207
7	Tacoma	Washington	204,200	3,407,848
8	Spokane	Washington	204,200	462,677
9	Richmond	British Columbia	193,255	2,318,526
10	Vancouver	Washington	165,809	2,241,845
11	Eugene	Oregon	157,100	345,880
12	Salem	Oregon	156,955	383,100
13	Abbotsford	British Columbia	135,866	280,210
14	Coquitlam	British Columbia	123,213	2,241,845
15	Bellevue	Washington	122,900	3,344,813
16	Kelowna	British Columbia	120,812	184,411
17	Kent	Washington	114,200	3,344,813
18	Sannich	British Columbia	113,516	367,572
19	Everett	Washington	104,100	N/A
20	Langley Township	British Columbia	103,267	2,241,845
21	Gresham	Oregon	101,015	2,207,462
22	Delta	British Columbia	99,862	2,241,845
23	Hillsboro	Oregon	90,380	N/A
24	Spokane Valley	Washington	90,210	N/A
25	Federal Way	Washington	88,760	3,344,813

Rjensen, sorry, but I feel that your comments do more to damage the collegial process than my edits do. This is not a table that resulted from extensive discussions (there are none), nor is it one that has been here for an extended period. It was created and added less than half a day before my actions by a new editor. Furthermore, your spurious and unwarranted accusations that I was unwilling to work on it are insulting, to put it mildly. --Ckatz^chat_spy 08:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Well Ckatz doesn't take criticism well--and he can't tolerate small imperfections in a table, preferring to erase it (he did not move it) rather than help improve it. When I tried to fix the table he removed my work too, again without trying to add any of the information he demanded be in there. We have talk pages to consult before making radical changes. In my opinion it's insulting to the hard working editors who make serious efforts to build up an article to erase their solid if imperfect material. Ckatz on the other hand thinks it's insulting for anyone to complain at his rash actions, even though he now admits it was indeed a mistake on his part. Rjensen (talk) 08:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

"Remove your work"?!? You added five characters to the title, "U.S. " to the title. "Small imperfections"?!? The table ignored an entire portion of the region. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:00, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

the small change I made answered CKatz's complaint, but he erased it all anyway. Meanwhile another editor has added info to the original that may or may not meet Ckatz's objections--he is silent on this matter and the info is still not in the article where it belongs. He can help repair the damage by putting the table in, or explaining to us what his new objections are. Rjensen (talk) 09:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Why would you presume it addressed my concerns when my edit summary clearly stated "moving to talk page until it can be updated; unbalanced to completely ignore Canadian cities here when the article explicitly discusses the region in terms of both Canadian and American coverage"? This is pointless. Emarsee, thank you very for tracking down the Canadian data. I'll put it the article. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Rjensen - I have to agree with Ckatz completely. I don't know the guy at all, but what he did was a reasonable, if slightly drastic, strategy. He explained why he did it, and began the process of fixing it. You posted on the talk page, speaking about him in the 3rd person (thus, by implication, speaking to everyone BUT him, which is an insulting way to speak), and attacking him using all sorts of unecessarily insulting words to describe his actions: "arbitrary", "without thinking about it", "unwilling to (sic) any actual work on it himself.", (from a later edit summary) "bad editing blunders" - You misrepresented him (he is clearly willing to do work) and said bad things about him that are not justified by his actions. This is the opposite of collegiality. I hope that you won't do this again, because what Ckatz did was trying to make Wikipedia better, but what you did is the type of thing that makes people throw up their hands in disgust and walk away from the project. Also - before you tell me that I'm trying to shut down debate, I'm not - you disagreeing with his actions was totally cool. You might have even been right. ...But when you come charging in insulting and accusing people of nasty things, you lose credibility, you make people less likely to support your point of view and, as I said, you turn people off the whole project. Let's work together to make it better, not rip down people who (for better or worse) are trying to make it better. WP:FAITH, and all that. AshleyMorton (talk) 09:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi there. Okay, I have done some work on the cities table but, to be honest, I'm not completely satisfied. I took out the metro numbers that I thought were confusing, because it could make it look like a smaller city had a *huge* metro population, when really, they were just a suburb of another list member. However, now, one can't sort by the metro population - and that's a loss. However, I must admit, I don't think that this list is as good as another potential list - a list of largest metros, or largest urban agglomerations (first one includes commuter populations, second one measures ONLY connected, built-up areas.) I think that these would be better because they will do things like remove the big suburban municipalities from their current, high, locations on the list - it's silly that Saanich is on the list, while Victoria is not, for example, but that's because the actual municipal City of Victoria is pretty small. The Victoria metro, on the other hand, is much more relevant. I'm going to take a shot at fixing this - let me know what you think when I'm done! AshleyMorton (talk) 09:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'm done. I think that the table looks better, because it actually lists the largest centres in the region, now. I've left it sorted by Urban Area size, because in the US, Metro areas are counted by entire counties. Therefore, because Everett is a commuter centre for Seattle, the entirety of Snohomish County is included in the Seattle metro statistics. Metro areas in Canada only include municipality-by-municipality. The information is still worthwhile, though, because it's a lot more right than it is wrong. I took out the ranking numbers, because I think everyone can form their own opinions, based on whether they want Urban Area stats or Metro. I cut it off when the urban core was below 100,000. Let me know what you think. AshleyMorton (talk) 10:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This seems fine to me, however the table's title still says "Largest cities", not "Largest metropolitan areas", which is what the table is very clearly showing now. Rootrider (talk) 12:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It'd be nice to have some discussion of the Asian population in the Seattle area. Asians are the biggest minority group here, and even though Seattle's Asian population isn't quite as big as the Lower Mainland's, it's still one of the biggest Asian communities in North America. 128.36.206.178 (talk) 05:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

It's also one of the largest Scandinavian cities in North America; being a minority isn't exclusive to visibility; the pretension that it is somehow more important/interesting is highly POV in nature; unless you're suggesting something like the completely superfluous and should-be-deleted Chinese enclaves in the San Gabriel Valley article (originally titled "Southern California Chinatowns", very inaccurately), I'd just leave it alone; the Lower Mainland article doesn't dwell on Asian minorities either, why should this one, or Seattle's??Skookum1 (talk) 01:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The "no references" tag was bugging me and I finally got around to doing something about it. I think I have everything well referenced to the most recent census data available. The US 2010 census data is available but still a bit weird to access. Refs to 2010 census data should probably be updated when the Census Bureau gets it all online better. The references broke the table's sorting and I'm not sure how to make it work off hand. So I made it unsortable until, or if, someone can figure out how to make it work. I suppose the references could have a column of their own. But for now, I'm done. Pfly (talk) 09:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)