Talk:Minnesota/Archive 3

regions?

Anyone know how the various MN regions could be worked into the article? I was thinking that maybe the "cities and towns" sections could be renamed into "regions". -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 04:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Just so you know - I'm working on re-defining the Regions. When I finish, I'll post it here for comments. Appraiser 22:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• 

  Regions are:

Northwest Angle
Iron Range
Twin Cities Metro
Central Minnesota
Southeast Minnesota
Buffalo Ridge
Red River Valley
Minnesota River Valley

My intention is to replace the Regions with these, so please comment. I'm sure the content of these articles will need work. What I'm more interested in is if the areas are defined in a logical way, and with boundaries that make sense, such that the regional articles can characterize the respective areas easily. Appraiser 02:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why - the thumbnail is an old version of the graphic. Appraiser 02:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• I forced a size, which caused it to regenerate a thumbnail. Do you have a source for how the regions are laid out? -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 02:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks. I created it with Corel Paint. I tried to keep boundaries that others had defined, and then made some up that were not previously defined. Appraiser 03:12, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• I can see contention coming along with this if there isn't a source. Even with a source there are 100's of ways of splitting up Minnesota, see [1],[2] (scroll over minnesota map), [3] and Coulee_Region for example. Its seems like the current info box mixes ways of dividing things, coulee region has common geography, the metro a common housing type (urban/suburban) etc. -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 05:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah - lots of ways to do it. I wouldn't think people would care too much, but maybe I'm mistaken. I think the current scheme needs to be replaced or repaired; some of the areas are overlapping or poorly defined, and much of the state's area isn't in any region, unless all unspecified area is lumped into outstate, which I find too vague. My main criteria were to conform to the existing regional articles, include all of the state in a region, and look ahead toward developing the sub articles, which included consideration of commonality of terrain, economy, politics, and climate within the individual regions. Do you have specific suggestions about boundary changes or gripes? Appraiser 06:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• I beleive there was some griping on iron range. The thing is that we can't just arbitraily decide, thats original research. Most of the articles are pretty small. Maybe we just have a "regions" article and break out the 1-2 noteworthy ones? -Ravedave ^{(help name my baby)} 06:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• I wasn't sure what to do with Pine County and Kanabec County. Those were a couple instances where I made a judgment, although I wasn't intending to do original research. Otherwise the Iron Range is exactly as defined in its own article. My main concerns with the regions is what goes in the large Minnesota table (Topics, Capital, Regions, Cities, Counties) and in Regions. Appraiser 15:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at each of the above articles referenced for the regions it seems that the regions are pretty well recognized. I myself had not heard of the Buffalo Ridge region, but was aware of the other regional areas. So, I don't think it is original research at all. My opinion is that the upper right part of minnesota is more noted for the Superior forest and the Boundary waters as well as Lake Superior (north shore) and is regionally distinct from the Iron range (Boundary waters does pass through the upper part of the iron range starting around Ely). But, I am not certain that I could document that perception. Perhaps, if not listed as a seperate region, that at least the BWCA could stand out on the map seperate from the Iron Range region )as it is managed by the forest service, and is a national wilderness area). So, just because we can't agree exactly and precisely about the Iron range doesn't mean it is original research. The people who live there have no confusion. Atom 09:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I started a new article Regions of Minnesota to develop this topic. I changed the map to show only well-documented areas found elsewhere; so I no longer cover all parts of the state, but also no longer fudge the previously documented boundaries to make that happen. I didn't draw in the BWCA, because I cannot tell from other source maps where the boundaries are. If someone else finds a source for that, I'll draw it in. The Red River Valley, Minnesota Valley, and Buffalo Ridge boundaries are from the geological map. The Iron Range, Southeast, Central, Twin Cities, and Northwest Angle boundaries are from their respective articles. If there is no objection, I plan to change the REGIONS section of the Minnesota template with these regions. Appraiser 02:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)