Talk:Halifax, Nova Scotia

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Archive 1 (to 25 July, 2006): on the identity/relationship of "Halifax, Nova Scotia" w/ "Halifax Regional Municipality" sundry other topics

Contents 1 Article needs a name modification 2 Halifax Neighbourhoods Input Needed 3 Population 4 History seems short 5 Should the title not be simply "Halifax, Nova Scotia"? 6 Requested move 6.1 Survey 6.1.1 Survey - in support of the move 6.1.2 Survey - in opposition to the move 6.2 Discussion 7 A city, or just a place-name? 8 Protection 9 Re-write of introduction 10 Request for Comment: city of Halifax 10.1 RFC attempt at consensus 11 Capital of Nova Scotia is: 12 Britannica says: 13 Page protection again 14 New category, perfect for this page 15 Note on de-archiving of the hereabove 16 Confusing! 16.1 Halifax Nova Scotia is not the Halifax Regional Municipality 17 Halifax Harbour 18 Shambles 18.1 Proposal 18.2 Attempt at a compromise article

[edit] Article needs a name modification

Halifax is a community of the Halifax Regional Municipality . Well it be better if the article be "City of Halifax" or "Community of Halifax" or even "Halifax Area" or something without brackets nor including metropolation not to confuse this area of HRM with the other areas of HRM and HRM itself that have different historys and facts . The heading "Halifax, Nova Scotia" the present legal place for the former city of Halifax area should not have be redirecting the Halifax Regional Municipality page and made the whole article on HRM confusing to people outside Nova Scotia.--Bill 20:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

There is no City of Halifax. There is HRM, and then there is the place formerly known as Halifax. They are two separate places. It has been 10 years since amalgamation and culturally, economically, and administrationally, urban Halifax/Dartmouth/Bedford/County is one unit now. Renaming this will just run us back into the confusion as per the debates on both the HRM and Halifax Former City talk archives. As we have said in the past "it is confusing on wikipedia because it is confusing in real life." WayeMason 00:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Halifax Neighbourhoods Input Needed

Okay.

I am tired of god damn real estate agents defining what the neighbourhoods on Halifax are. I am tired of them trying to say the south end extends to Quinpool to justify higher housing prices.

Historically, there was Halifax Town, with a West, North and South ends. Technically, the West End included Quinpool road, thus the WEST END CHURCH on Quinpool at Chestnut.

Anyway, I am looking for input. Below is a suggested neighbourhood map, trying to use the historic names.... Me personally, it sounds hard ass and cool to live in Fort Massey, which would have been the old south end. I don't know if anyone still calls it Fort Massey. I am totally against the north end being everything north of downtown, that is historically not accurate at all. The North End stopped at Richmond, which was just south of the current Hydrostones down to about Veith Street, where Idea of East used to be.... "Richmond Place' was the building. Also the old naval graving yard (the drydock) was considered to be in Richmond.

Lets talk about where the real neighbourhoods are, lets talk about what the people who live there call them and failing that, what they could/should call them, and lets make a more accurate map.

[[1]] WayeMason 23:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population

Er, this article is about Halifax, the former city. It is NOT about HRM. I have to agree that its inappropriate given the structure we have LABORIOUSLY and over a long period of time worked out to put HRM stats on this page. We might as well put the 359K population on the Bedford and Dartmouth pages, too... which is just illogical. WayeMason 01:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree 100% --Markhamman

• • The current population stats for "Halifax" are incorrect - they are for the HRM urban core and not the former city.Plasma east 02:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History seems short

No mention of the explosion? --AW 18:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Should the title not be simply "Halifax, Nova Scotia"?

It seems to me that the title "Halifax, Nova Scotia" ought belong to this article, rather than being a redirect to the new-fangled "Halifax Regional Municipality". I gather that, despite the administrative amalgamation, the communities involved have not lost their distictiveness, and that "Halifax" is yet understood, locally, to mean Halifax itself -- the area of the former city, proper -- not the new, broader area, encompassing many other communities besides. Certainly this seems to me the natural meaning; communities with a long tradition of being distinct from each other do not ordinarily abandon that tradition in response to a mere administrative act, especially one imposed from higher up. Granted, I don't live nearby, and defer to the opinion of those who do. If it is as I suspect, though, then "Halifax, Nova Scotia" yet means the same area it has meant historically, the administrative dissolution of the "City of Halifax" notwithstanding. If that is so, then this article should be titled "Halifax, Nova Scotia". The title "...(former city)" is cumbersome, and confusing to anyone who does not happen to know beforehand of the details of recent administrative changes in the Halifax area -- which I dare say includes just about any WP user who is not from that region.
-- Lonewolf BC 09:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is a Map of the Halifax Regional Municipality clearly shows "Halifax, Nova Scotia" should belong to the article Halifax (former city), Nova Scotia while the Halifax Regional Municipality should be not be the redirected article that is now . The other communities like Dartmouth, Nova Scotia have articles of thier own . Halifax Regional Municipality is no different than York Region where the towns of Markham, Ontario ,Aurora, Ontario,East Gwillimbury, Ontario are.
-- Markhamman 16:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Holy cats! This is even more straightforward than I thought. The regional municipality is not even a single connurbation. Plainly "Halifax, Nova Scotia" does not normally mean that whole broad area, with its many separate communities. What is the rationale for the resistance (I surmise that there must be resistance) to moving this article to "Halifax, Nova Scotia"?
-- Lonewolf BC 19:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Because the city of Halifax doesn't exist anymore. It'd make about as much sense as having Toronto send you to Metro Toronto. York Region shouldn't be compared to the HRM, YR is made up of a bunch of towns that, as far as I can tell, still have some separate bureaucracies and services. HRM isn't some "newfangled" thing, it's been around for 10 years, and when it was created, it meant the consolidation of everything (just consider regional municipalities to be basically synonymous with cities). Dartmouth is now a part of Halifax. (i.e., Dartmouth doesn't have a higher legal status than say, Clayton Park, because at this point, they're all just names). We've had endless discussions on this, don't just go and redirect the thing like that without a full understanding of the situation. Besides, Halifax Regional Municipality is a much more detailed article - the former city article is essentially just a list of neighbourhoods that once made up the City of Halifax. The capitol of Nova Scotia can't be Halifax, Nova Scotia (former city), because the former city doesn't exist anymore! Sprocket 23:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The city of Halifax no longer exists? Really? What happened? Did a giant meteor hit it, and leave a huge crater?
What you mean (or at least what you should mean, keeping needful distinctions straight) is that the City of Halifax no longer exists, as a corporate entity. The physical city of Halifax is just as much there as it has been since the 18th century. It is this physical (and social) city that people mean when they say "Halifax, Nova Scotia". I dare say that no one (apart, perhaps, from some bureaucrats and a few a few people with idiosyncratic ideas about geographic nomenclature) means the regional municipality, with all of its many historic settlements having identities of their own, and the open spaces in between. The world at large is scarcely even aware of this administrative change; the people living in the vicinity (by what I've read in WP, and as anyone would expect) pay it no mind as regards what they mean by "Halifax". All that has happened is that Halifax has been dis-incorporated as a separate local government, and merged into a larger unit. So it is now an unincorporated city instead of an incorporated one. It is no less distinct, for that. Most to the point, it is no less what most people mean by "Halifax, Nova Scotia", and that is the decisive fact, not the administrative divisions and units currently in effect.
Any issues of the content and relative quality of the articles are easily remedied. So they count for nought.
This is silly. Cities exist or not by virture of their physical presence, firstly, and secondarily as social entities. Administrative units may or may not (not, in this case) be congruent with physical and social reality, but that does not matter to whether a city (or smaller settlement) exists. The provincial government made an end of the City, only. It has no power to do away with the city, likewise.
-- Lonewolf BC 02:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's one trouble we run into, though: Having Halifax Halifax, Nova Scotia redirect to Halifax, Nova Scotia (former city) means that, say, 2014 Commonwealth Games now has us believe that the city of Halifax is bidding on the Commonwealth Games, rather than the HRM, which is what's actually true.

These days, Halifax, Dartmouth, and the whole darn region is legally one city; it wouldn't make sense to have a Wikipedia article based on former boundaries. Sprocket 08:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

No they are not. They, together with a broad, non-urban surrounding area are legally one "regional municipality", within which are a great number of unincorporated communities of various sizes, distinct from each other, including Halifax. Again, the decisive fact is what people mean by "Halifax, Nova Scotia", and what they mean is the city of Halifax. Whether current administrative boundaries conform to that meaning is neither here nor there, any more than it is for any other unincorporated settlement within some broader area of local governance.
-- Lonewolf BC 18:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

A simple piped link solves the "problem" you raise where some particular use really means the regional municipality, as in the instance you chose in making the point -- as you knew perfectly well, whereas it was you who saw to that (diff), over a year ago.
-- Lonewolf BC 18:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, when I say "Halifax", I mean the whole region. When I lived in Dartmouth, I always said I lived in Halifax. If I was were to say Dartmouth I might as well have said Manor Park, Nova Scotia. The "Halifax" population number in the census, for example, is the population of the whole regional municipality, not just for the area within boundaries that haven't had any bearing since 1996. Since I can see this is (puzzlingly) a controversial issue, can I suggest we have a Wikipedia:Third opinion done to avoid the constant reverting? Sprocket 21:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... Well, that's you. The question is, what does the English-speaking world at large mean by "Halifax, Nova Scotia", which is surely not the broad and almost wholly non-urban area shown by that map of the regional municipality. One look at that and I'll warrant that the vast majority of people will say that they mean the actual city.
I note that you have gotten into this same disagreement with a number of people. That should tell you something. So in a sense this matter has already been put to third parties, and the consensus has been that "Halifax, Nova Scotia" ordinarily means the (physical) city, not the (administrative) region, and should redirect accordingly. However, if you want to put this to a "Request for comment", that is fine with me.
-- Lonewolf BC 22:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
PS: Note the flaw, too, in your example of Dartmouth. I would not be much surprised if many people in and around Halifax use "Halifax" to mean "greater Halifax", including Dartmouth and the rest of the Halifax connurbation. This is not at all the same thing as meaning the area of the regional municipality, of which that connurbation is only a very small part.
-- Lonewolf BC 22:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Can the article Halifax, Nova Scotia (former city) should be changed to Halifax, Nova Scotia ? Or an act of congress is needed to do it . Whoever started in the first place should of researched the title before even writing it. The city yes does not exist as a city but the area is still considered "Halifax Nova Scotia" the same goes with Dartmouth and Bedford by the very government who created the Halifax Regional Municipality in the first place --D052

[edit] Requested move

[edit] A city, or just a place-name?

Merriam-Webster Online defines a city as:

1 a : an inhabited place of greater size, population, or importance than a town or village b : an incorporated British town usually of major size or importance having the status of an episcopal see c capitalized (1) : the financial district of London (2) : the influential financial interests of the British economy d : a usually large or important municipality in the United States governed under a charter granted by the state e : an incorporated municipal unit of the highest class in Canada

Lets study this...

a - Halifax is now a contiguous conurbation stretching from out towards Chebucto head, west to Timberlea, and up the harbour toward Bedford. The whole metro Halifax conurbation is a city, but the old ci ty of Halifax has been absorbed into this larger unit b - Halifax is not incorporated c - it is not the city of London! :) d - is not under a charter (its under two or three, Halifax Mainland and Halifax peninsula, and maybe the Capital district) e - again, it is not incorporated.

Halifax is not a city. It is bad wiki to say Halifax, inside of the old boundaries, is a city. You could create a new article called Halifax Urban Area or Urban Halifax, Nova Scotia, or something, and talk about that, I suppose.

As an aside - my personal feeling is that the Chebucto area (the former mainland) is going to strengthen in identity, and Halifax will become just the peninsula, with it's North, South and West ends of Halifax. But thats not fully common usage yet... WayeMason 10:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Halifax is "an inhabited place of greater size, population, or importance than a town or village". In a word, it is a city. It makes no difference that the city is bigger now than formerly, nor that its exact bounds are arguable. There is little purpose in consulting a dictionary over such a commonly understood word as "city", and even less in noting that Halifax does not meet any of its more particular definitions. It meets the common definition, and that is both obvious and enough. -- Lonewolf BC 19:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The former city of Halifax is not "an inhabited place of greater size, population or importance than a town or village." The entire urban area of HRM is that, you see? Why would you maintain that a small part of the inside of the contiguous urban area is still a "city" when there is no demographic, geographic or legal reason to do so? Again, time marches on. Nobody talks about the "Town of Willowdale" which was long ago subsumed by North York, it's now just the neighbourhood of Willowdale. Nobody talks about the "Town of Richmond" which was long ago absorbed by Halifax. Nobody talks about "Williamsberg" they just talk about Brooklyn. Things change. This changed. There is no city of Halifax. Please be mindful of the three changes rule. You are running out of opportunities to change this back. Also please don't edit the title to my comments, thats silly. WayeMason 19:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

What is silly is for you to insist that Halifax is a "former city", when it is a current city by the common understanding of what is a city.
"Why would you maintain that a small part ... legal reason to do so?" You are begging the question.
"Again, time marches on. ... Things change. This changed. There is no city of Halifax." Things change, but this did not. Again, you are begging the question. There is still a city of Halifax, albeit that there is no City of Halifax. Because of the lack of a corresponding municipal government, and of its physical growth, Halifax's boundaries are arguable, as said, but that does not mean it has ceased to be. -- Lonewolf BC 19:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

So, in an effort to have some good will, would you be satisfied if we had a Halifax, Nova Scotia article about the former city, and a Halifax Urban Area article? My issue here, again, is that there is an urban area of Halifax a city, that is a continuous area all around the harbour, and then there is a community of Halifax, and the boarders are not the same. Do you even live in Halifax? Are you familiar with the common uses as have emerged since amalgamation? If I called all the city councilors in and polled them, or called city planning and asked them, would you accept the answer if they disagreed with you? What kind of research and/or footnotable references can we find to help solve this issue? WayeMason 22:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Too many questions, too rhetorical, and too little to the point. Current information [2] shows Halifax to be both readily distinguishable, geographically, and actually distinguished as a "Metropolitan Area", bureaucratically, -- in short, a city. HRM's "Western Region" of its "Urban Core" equates nicely, if not perfectly, likewise recognising the ongoing existence of this identifiable city. Write whatever other articles you wish and can get to pass muster, but please stop putting it about that Halifax is a "former city". -- Lonewolf BC 15:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The website you use as a reference states that Halifax status is that of a metropolitan area, not a city. Your own reference agrees with my point. If you change your tone, act with some good faith, and focus on determining the facts I am sure we can get through this to the objective facts. WayeMason 18:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it quite disagrees with your point. You are confusing being a city, in physical fact, with being a City, as a legal entity. A city, by any other name is still a city; the reason that Halifax is a recognized "Metropolitan Area" is that it is a city in physical fact -- and likewise for Dartmouth, separately so recognized.
By the way, I don't much care for your tone, either, and care even less for your accusations of bad faith. Tone is somewhat subjective, of course, and prone to misinterpretation, making a degree of charity and tolerance wise, in that regard. Your accusation, on the other hand, has been made altogether too explicit. No more, please. -- Lonewolf BC 19:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You, sir, started the personal attacks, as the record above clearly shows. You wrote Write whatever other articles you wish and can get to pass muster How can a statement like this be considered good faith? Maybe you will reconsider this statement and apologize?

Anyway, back to the issue.

We continue to circle this, in terms of your interpretation of facts and phrases verses mine. Obviously we are not going to agree on the issue. I have proposed that we find additional information that we will agree to abide by or agree to a framework to resolve our disagreement. I am not going to agree with you, unless you bring new information, I just cannot agree to your view as I don't think the facts support it. So we need to find a way that we can bring in more information or agree on a definitive source. For example, I could go and speak to Andy Fullmer at HRM planning, Frank Polarmo at Dal Cities and Environment Unit, and maybe the CAO of HRM. Or maybe the head of Heritage and ask them their opinions. Or we could ask some English professors. But we clearly need to find more sources here in order to move toward a resolution.

Anyway, I cannot talk about this any more tonight as I have to go to bed. Tomorrow I will be participating as a guest panelist on the CBC Radio town hall about the future of the city, which as far as the good people at CBC and 9 other guests (city planners, some politicians, other culture and planning activists) are concerned is all of HRM on this show. Listen in if you want, its on from 6:00-8:30 AST at this link. I am on at 8:00ish WayeMason 01:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

With regard to the "personal attacks" you suppose that I started, one often hears of ironic remarks getting misconstrued, in mediums such as this, when a reader takes them literally, but I believe this is the first instance I've met in which a remark has been misconstrued by failure to take it literally. I'm not sure just how you have managed to interpret my "Write whatever other articles..." as an attack on you or an act of bad faith, but it was neither. Any such aspect has been read into it by you. It really means what the very words say, and I wrote it with reference to your suggestion of having a "Halifax Urban Area" article.
No authority can trump the physical facts on the ground, which unsurprisingly show that the city of Halifax is still there, but politicians and officials connected with HRM are particularly liable to have an interest in promoting some uncommon notion of what Halifax is or is not. -- Lonewolf BC 19:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

So, if the politicans, planners, etc disagree with you they have are biased against the facts. Again, your assertions are being challenged, I have proposed several frameworks so we can seek more data and move forward on this issue. I will get emails from Service Nova Scotia Municipal Relations, HRM Planning, HRM Politicans, area MLAs, whatever. How about the opinion of the head of Urban Planning at the regions biggest University. WayeMason 01:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, today for 2 hours on the CBC morning show they talked about the future of our city, Halifax. Journalists, planners, an activist, an architect, a novelist, a Festival promoter (me) all talked as well as members of the audience. When we were speaking about the city, we were talking about HRM. Some people were talking about issues specific to neighborhoods in Dartmouth, Bedford, inside of the discussion about our city. No one was talking about "just the old city area" they were talking about 'the city' meaning all of it, all of urban Halifax. I am more convinced than ever that the common or popular usage in media and everyday use is to call HRM Halifax, and the city, interchangeably. The discussion is archived on the CBC Nova Scotia website if anyone wants to listen. I find this whole debate an increasingly depressing waste of time. WayeMason 01:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"So, if the politicans, planners, etc disagree..."
No, that's not what I said. I said that official pronouncements or other "expert" opinions do not trump physical facts and the common understanding of what is a city -- and are of even less value when they are liable to be biased, as is the case with politicians and officials of the regional municipality, in relation to the question at hand. -- Lonewolf BC 02:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

So your solution is for us to come to an good faith agreement is? Or are you just *right* and I am supposed to agree with you now? WayeMason 13:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"...an incorporated municipality, usually governed by a mayor and a board of aldermen or councilmen." (city, dictionary.com)

If anything, this article should be a subsection of Halifax Regional Municipality (which, in turn, should be renamed to Halifax, Nova Scotia). When I say "Halifax", I'm talking about the peninsula, Dartmouth, Bedford, and the whole area. I use to argue over this subject a lot, I got tired of it, but it seems ridiculous to have two articles on basically the same subject. As of 1996, "Halifax" is not just the peninsula, it is the entire Halifax county. I'm gonna have to side with Wayemason on this one. Sprocket 00:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Halifax, Nova Scotia is a un unincorporated community and is a placename unlike the Halifax Regional Municipality which a incorporated Regional municipality. The term city does not fit into both reguardless what the media say because HRM ,Federal, and Nova Scotia websites state HRM as a regional municipality --D053 10:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I changed the header to reflect the debate underway without prejudicing it. WayeMason 16:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I just want to let it be known that D053 is a sockpuppet of Matthvm. Sprocket 18:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Blocked. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 18:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I ask you again, what means are you willing to agree to so we can "sort this out" as we were asked to? Right now, we have 2 against, 1 for, and one sock puppet against calling it a city. Hardly conclusive. We can take a poll of authoritative sources, and/or we can try and work out a compromise on wording. But we cannot leave the page locked forever. WayeMason 22:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This ought not be needed, but in the interests of putting this "former city" stuff to rest:
"Halifax, capital of Nova Scotia and the largest city in Atlantic Canada .... On 1 April 1996 Halifax was amalgamated with neighbouring communities to form Halifax Regional Municipal Government, but its individual identity has been retained." (emphasis mine)
-- The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2000 ed.
The notion that Halifax is a "former city" is nought but a bizarre "original research" thesis -- an odd POV which for some reason a few people have been zealously pushing among Halifax-related articles. It defies ordinary concepts of what is a city. It is has no reliable sources. The unanimous outcome of the requested move debate, in which so many answerers felt inclined to comment, besides, on how ridiculous "former city" was, in the former title of the article, shows up how ridiculous people typically regard the denial of Halifax's on-going city-hood as being. This whole issue is preposterous, and in the lack of any good source for the position that the city of Halifax is no more, this point is not rightly even moot.
-- Lonewolf BC 01:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

1- Your source is 7 years old. HRM has changed a lot in 7 years. 2 - your source says that our individual identity has been retained, no one is arguing that, but a community is not a necessarily a city 3- The community of Halifax, Nova Scotia exists, thus rendering any attempt to apply the vote on the name of the article to our little tiff as inconclusive at best, misleading at worst. 4 - Your own source above [3] says that Halifax (City) was incorporated in 1841. Confirmed 1 March 1921. Status changed to Metropolitan Area when the City was dissolved by the creation of Halifax Regional Municipality on 1 April 1996 by Bill 3. 5 - using big words and blustering a lot is not an particularly effective argument on your part. 6 - I have tried to talk to you directly about coming to a consensus agreement on rewording the lead paragraph in the article to no avail.

Obviously there is a city here. My issue with your definition is that your definition is increasingly arbitrary, as the full cultural, infrastructure, economic and political integration of the urban parts of HRM is pretty much complete above the neighborhood or community level. The city is all of urban HRM that wraps around Halifax harbour. Halifax is a community in HRM, and a community in urban HRM. Again, no one still talks about the Town of Willowdale. Its a neighbourhood of Toronto. WayeMason 01:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

The protection has expired. Rather than reprotect it I have removed the header that was being warred over and replaced it with the {{otheruses3|PAGE}}. I did it because it appeared to be a more neutral template. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 23:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The plain "otheruses" is fine by me. -- Lonewolf BC 23:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-write of introduction

In an effort to keep our little tiff from exploding again, here is my proposed new introduction to the article. We may not agree on much, but surely we can agree the current introduction is just badly writen...

Halifax was founded by the British goverment under the direction of the Board of Trade and Plantations under the command of Governor Edward Cornwallis in 1749[4]

After a protracted struggle between residents and the Executive Council, the city was incorporated in 1841. Halifax was also the shire town of Halifax County. On 1 April 1996, the government of Nova Scotia amalgamated the four municipalities within Halifax County, among them the City of Halifax, and formed Halifax Regional Municipality, a single-tier regional government covering that whole area. The City of Halifax ceased to be a legal entity, but the city of Halifax is still recognised as unincorporated "Metropolitan Area" by the provincial government. [5] Residents of Halifax are called Haligonians.

Will you be okay with this? WayeMason 00:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

(The just-above, by WayeMason, moved to here from my talk-page. -- Lonewolf BC 01:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC))

Off-hand, I don't see any see any grave problems with that as a replacement for the second paragraph that is there now -- so long as the very opening sentence ("Halifax is...") stays. -- Lonewolf BC 01:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

So as soon as the protection comes off you have to add the word city again? Nice. Very nice. Thats some high quality good faith discussion. How can you say Halifax is the biggest city in Atlantic Canada when the only actual authoritative source, Statscan, refers to it as the former city? Are you going to delete HRM from lists cities and insert a geographic area with no formal boundaries, no recognized legal existence, instead? WayeMason 01:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Please quit flinging accusastions. I did no such thing -- any more than I did the other things of which you've accused me.
It is not legal status, nor legal city limits, nor Statscan's words or divisions that make a city a city. -- Lonewolf BC 04:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been following this with some interest but staying out of it thus far. My question for Lonewolf BC: If the gov't of BC dissolved every incorporated municipality in greater Vancouver and placed them under a new municipality called Fraser Valley Regional Municipality, and 12 years later after the entire FVRM grew to encompass a completely integrated municipal unit, would you refer to FVRM as a city, or Vancouver as a city, or both?
I'll be the first to admit that the HRM concept is very confusing for non-residents and residents alike, but it is what the elected representatives provincially and municipally chose to do (to placate those opposed to amalgamation). Governments have made a very conscious effort to make the entire regional municpality work as a single unit, which can be seen in development strategies, statistical gathering, etc. I know it defies the popular logic about "cities" but it is a concept that the residents of HRM have chosen to live with. If everyone is to be amalgamated, no single "former" municipality stands to rise above the rest.
Plasma east 14:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Please answer your own question or, better yet, just make your point straightforwardly.
You touch upon political considerations, and consequent actions of governments, which tend to make mine. -- Lonewolf BC 17:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well my answer tends to follow the standard line that many people in HRM follow - it's a region. "Halifax" was founded in 1749, incorporated in 1841 and dissolved in 1996. I admit that it is confusing, wherein the former "City of Halifax" uses the same name "Halifax" that is found in "Halifax County" and the new "Halifax Regional Municipality". It would have been much easier if the provincial gov't had chosen an entirely new name for the regional municipality, such as "Chebucto". But you shouldn't discount the fact that HRM is a single-tier municipality - this is the essence of the debate you and WayeMason are having. What you are suggesting be adopted here appears to be an ambiguous definition of a city, vs. the legal incorporation as defined under the laws of the Province of Nova Scotia. Residents of the new "region" were adamant that if amalgamation were to be successful, all former municipalities must disappear completely. There is no reason why "Halifax" as a city should exist in Wikipedia, when it does not in legal actuality among the residents of this region - anymore than Dartmouth would, or Bedford, or the former Municipality of the County of Halifax. I don't really think Wikipedia should be the place for a philosophical discussion about whether a city "exists" or not - we should go by the existing definition of the jurisdiction it is incporated under. Let bureaucrats and politicians debate it and we should accept whatever status they accord to the entity. Plasma east 18:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course there is a city here. The city is all all of urban HRM. Of course there is a western region, a Halifax community, a Halifax Metropolitan area. All these things are true. The most telling statement you have made, Lonewolf BC, is this There is little purpose in consulting a dictionary over such a commonly understood word as "city", and even less in noting that Halifax does not meet any of its more particular definitions. It meets the common definition, and that is both obvious and enough. This is totally unacceptable. Your argument revolves around the fact that there is a common and obvious definition, and that even if abundant sources, from the HRM site, the Province's Geonova site, the federal Geomatics site, every dictionary site, wikipedias own page on cities, all disagree with you, then they are wrong, because it is obvious and common, so obvious no one bothered to actually make a reference? As a side note, I am going to edit the line that say that it is the capital of Nova Scotia. The act that created HRM clearly states that HRM succeeds City of Halifax in terms of all provincial legislation and that the word Halifax in older legislation refers to HRM as of 1996. Unfortunately that act is not on line, but if you look at the Elections Act, which is on line, the word Halifax is removed and Halifax Regional Municipality is inserted. These two acts clearly mean that the Capital of Nova Scotia is HRM. WayeMason 19:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The "common and obvious definition" of "city" is the one that most any English-speaker knows, the one that appears first in dictionaries, and the one I am applying in calling Halifax a city. When I wrote, "There is little purpose...", I meant that consulting a dictionary over so well known a word tells us nought that we did not already know, and so is rather pointless. I did not mean, and do not in any way suggest, that some personal understanding of the word should override the dictionary's definition. But, contrary to your suggestion, I am not contradicting or seeking to ignore the dictionary. -- Lonewolf BC 21:41, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment: city of Halifax

This is a dispute about whether it is accurate to continue to refer to the area of or approximately coinciding with the boundaries of the City of Halifax, which became a part of the rural/urban Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996, as a city. 22:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC) For more info read Wikipedia:Request_for_comments

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

• We all agree that this is no longer a City, but to use former City's boundaries when describing the current urban area as a "city" (note the lower case) is at best arbitrary and at worst a fabrication. The city is now a continuous area that wraps the harbour, from Portuguese Cove (outside of the city of Halifax to the west and south) to Cole Harbour (outside of the former City of Dartmouth to the east). People now refer to the entire urban area of Halifax Regional Municipality as 'the city' and 'Halifax'. -- WayeMason 22:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments

• Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as 'city status' in Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotian equivalent at this point is a Regional Municipality. Keeping in mind, however, that not all regional municipalities in the province are considered cities. The reason the HRM and the Sydney area (CBRM) were incorporated into Regional Municipalities is because it simply did not make sense to have separate towns in the counties because they were large enough to be called cities, but there was no such thing as city status in Nova Scotia. Thomasiscool 00:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• There's no consensus in how Nova Scotians use the term "the city", but no-one I know would call a trip to Portuguese Cove "going to the city". This is (ostensibly) an encyclopedia and we're allowed to be pedantic, but I don't understand opposition to the idea that the Municipality includes a number of communities both rural and urban, and that the community or group of communities that form the downtown core is/are "a city". Let the article reflect that there's dissension on the street as to what is or is not "Halifax" and what is or is not "the city", and let's move on with this.
  --RobHutten 02:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• Of course the article on "Halifax, Nova Scotia" should be on the whole city, whatever its extents rightly may be. This whole dispute, at least as between WayeMason and myself, might be a mere misunderstanding. I'm not much concerned with exactly how much of the built-up area is covered by this article. It is important that the extent of Halifax be based upon reliable secondary sources, not on the personal observations or opinions of editors ("original research"). I've not been saying, though, that the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is necessarily bound by the former limits of the dissolved City of Halifax. I am concerned that it not be said or implied, in the WP article, that there is no longer a city -- Halifax -- and I am concerned that "Halifax, Nova Scotia" not be equated with HRM, whereas Halifax is a city while HRM is a region (perhaps more exactly, a government of a region, that region being the none other than the County of Halifax).

  This problem seems to have begun with the edit that "moved Halifax, Nova Scotia to Halifax, Nova Scotia (former city)". Those are not identical subjects, and while the City of Halifax is no more, and last had the definite boundaries which it had upon its dissolution, Halifax, the now-unincorporated city, goes on, and has the current extent that reliable sources ascribe to it. It would be fine to have a separate article, on the City of Halifax (entitled "City of Halifax", or if disambiguation is needed perhaps "City of Halifax (Nova Scotia)") and of course such an article would note that its subject was dissolved in 1996, and so exists only historically -- that is, the legal entity is history, not the city itself.

  As to the current extent of Halifax, the map in the article on Halifax in The Canadian Encyclopedia shows it as including Dartmouth: "Halifax" is in larger font, embracing smaller-font "Halifax" and "Dartmouth", across the inlet from one another. The text of the article likewise seems to cover Dartmouth as being part of Halifax. Not so for Bedford, in either text or map. Current mapping likewise seems to show that Bedford is as yet not continuous with Halifax, or at least that development thins out before getting denser again, as one goes from Halifax to Bedford (or Bedford to Halifax). On the opposite shore, Bedford and Dartmouth are separated by DND lands. Against the article in The Canadian Encyclopedia, the online Nova Scotia Geographical Names shows a Dartmouth and Halifax as two separate cities (lowercase "c"), without an overarching "Halifax", and HRM makes them each its own "Metropolitan Area" (and each somewhat bigger than were the former City of Dartmouth and City of Halifax, respectively). From this it would seem that Bedford ought not be covered by this article, but that whether or not Dartmouth ought be included is moot.

  I regret the rancour that this issue seems to have generated, and assure all that there has been none on my part. -- Lonewolf BC 02:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• Peace Halifax is not a city its just a place name with no legal status but still within the same limits when it was incorporated before April 1,1996. According to the Nova Scotia and Municipal Relatations there is no place in Nova Scotia listed as a city . All the former cities are either part of HRM or CBRM . Now as for it been the capital a definetly no. The Halifax Regional Municipality is as it states here and here. Now the urban core is what HRM defines for creating bylaws that affect either the rural or urban areas ex. winter parking ban . Its commbine the communities or palcenames into two or three areas to simplify thats so they would not have name 150 so names when comes to draft rules for planning. Its nothing to what a dictionary says but what the province and HRM has to say . This what I go by--Sonyuser 02:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• In Australia, we have separate articles for cities/towns and for local government areas. A similar situation to what Halifax is in appears to be Mildura, Victoria and Rural City of Mildura, which is a local government area (the third level of government, below a state). The Rural City was created by merging a number of smaller LGAs (including the City of Mildura) and very clearly includes a number of towns and localities that are not part of "Mildura". When I visited "Halifax" a few years ago, I didn't even think about local government, but I thought of "Halifax" as the built-up area. I recognised that Dartmouth was "different", but didn't really think about whether it was or was not "part of Halifax" on the other side of the harbour, or a separate town. I don't know if this helps, but I would definitely expect to find an article at Halifax, Nova Scotia that describes roughly the built-up/metropolitan/urban area, its history and culture, separate from an article about the governance, either pre- or post-merger. Most of the capital cities of our states are the other way around. For example, Adelaide, South Australia contains 18 LGAs, most of which are called "City of ...". One is the City of Adelaide. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• That's a most sensible approach, at least where there is not a good match between governmental boundaries and physical facts on the ground, as with Halifax. Unincorporated towns and villages are commonplace, and I am sure great numbers of them have WP articles about them without anyone insisting that "____ is not a town" on the basis that it lacks its own "Town of ____" municipal government. Unincorporated cities are much rarer, I suspect, but it is beyond me why they should not be treated likewise, without fuss.
  -- Lonewolf BC 15:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• Here's another way of looking at it. Yes, the HRM includes all of Halifax County, but take another example. The Cape Breton Regional Municipality has been incorporated in the same way, but there are still separate communities (see Cape Breton Regional Municipality for more info). So, supposing we deleted the communities' respective pages and merged them all into the CBRM article. That would be exactly like what is proposed for this article. Thomasiscool 22:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• That is the exact problem we are facing here. I don't think the "city" ends at the old "City of Halifax" (1841-1996) boundaries - it is the urban area surrounding Halifax Harbour. The Government of Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia Geomatics Centre and the Nova Scotia Geographical Names Board) has designated the former "City of Halifax" as an "metropolitan area" (their definition) to at least recognize the history of this former incorporated municipality. The argument being made for an article on the "City of Halifax" is that the "City of Halifax (1841-1996) is not the same as the "city of Halifax" (2007). I believe that the entity that existed for over 150 years should receive the "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article, since it is legally recognized as a community and metropolitan area by the provincial government. Statistics Canada does not break down its population statistics for HRM to distinguish between the urban area surrounding Halifax Harbour (the "city" in this case) and the rural area (east, west and north of the urban area), so I think until that is available, we should maintain the status quo. To make the "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article ignore this original community and start to blend modern-day HRM-related statistics and other information will create an even more confusing situation than exists at present. I respect the philosphical position that a "city" exists around Halifax Harbour in 2007 (it definitely does), but exactly what an article on it should be called is still up for debate, however I really don't think that the "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article is the best place for it, given the provincial government's designation for this community.Plasma east 11:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with:

• Halifax, Nova Scotia - the community that has at various times been called a settlement, town, city (small 'c') and metropolitan area
• City of Halifax - a political/government entity that existed between 1841 and 1996
• Halifax Regional Municipality - a political/government entity that came into existence in 1996
• Halifax County, Nova Scotia - another former political/government entity
• Halifax Harbour - a sheltered body of water
• Halifax - a disambiguation page covering these and many others

--Scott Davis ^Talk 15:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

might i suggest:

• Halifax, Nova Scotia - redirects to Halifax Regional Municipality (or alternately, HRM could redirect to Halifax, NS, I just don't think it matters anymore)
• City of Halifax - a political/government entity that existed between 1841 and 1996, which would probably be a renamed History of Halifax article with the current Halifax, Nova Scotia grafted on top.
• Halifax Peninsula for the old city of Halifax until 1969, and the current planning area and community council
• Mainland Halifax for the part of the city annexed in 1969 and turned into its own planning area and community council in 1996.
• Halifax Regional Municipality - a political/government entity that came into existence in 1996, with a NEW SECTION with a map showing the Urban core and suburban area and describing the difference between Halifax, the city, and Halifax, Sheet Harbour style.
• Halifax County, Nova Scotia - another former political/government entity that still has legal usage as counties matter in Nova Scotia legislation (married in the municpality of Halifax, in the county of Halifax, for example)
• Halifax Harbour - a sheltered body of water
• Halifax - a disambiguation page covering these and many others

WayeMason 20:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the sensible thing to do is to have the following articles:

• Halifax, Nova Scotia. This would include Halifax, Clayton Park, Fairview, Spryfield, Herring Cove, Princes Lodge, etc.
• Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. This would include Dartmouth, Shearwater, Westphal, Woodside, Shannon Park, and possibly as far out as Eastern Passage, etc.
• Bedford, Nova Scotia. This would include Bedford, Fernleigh, Killarney, etc.
• Keep all the existing articles that are deemed necessary about smaller communities such as Lower Sackville, Sheet Harbour, Hacketts Cove, etc.
• We incorporate everything not deemed worthy of its own article into an article about a larger community, or into the existing HRM article, which we would keep, and
• Keep all the articles listed by WayeMason about things other than communities, incorporating those deemed unnecessary into larger articles. Thomasiscool 00:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

This graphic illustrates why I think keeping the Halifax article is incorrect if it is kept for anything but historical reasons. Old City of Halifax doesn't exist legally, practically, and if anything, exists only in the hearts a shrinking number of people. The city inside of the HRM would be either the urban suburban area, or the urban/suburban/rural commutershed. For those of you outside of HRM, let me tell you, its a 20 minute drive from Exit Five on the 103 to the heart of the city. I think that it is appropriate to merge the articles on HRM and Halifax, and make the changes, because as long as we have the living HRM and the archival city being confused, we are going to revisit this discussion ad nausium because it is confusing and misleading. We will of course keep the Dartmouth and Bedford articles because both these historic areas continue as planning areas, so those articles easily fit both needs, the same way the Brooklyn article discusses the former city of Brooklyn and the current Borough of Brooklyn in one single article. Again, I stand by my proposal, it best represents the facts. WayeMason 01:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that there are people who think "Halifax, Nova Scotia" means HRM. "Halifax, Nova Scotia" should cover the area where people would come from who would introduce themselves as "I live in Halifax" when they are meeting someone from a different continent. Wikipedia is a global resource. Would a resident of Peggy's Cove tell me they come from Halifax, or from "Peggy's Cove, a small town southwest of Halifax"? What about people from Sheet Harbour? Do they identify themselves as Haligonians to the world? To people from Truro or New Glasgow? Do they "go downtown" or go "to Halifax"? I'd be upset if I thought I was booking a room in Halifax and ended up in Sheet Harbour, or vice versa. The concept of Halifax, Nova Scotia does not need to have a defined line on the ground, but it is the main article for the city, which is different to its regional government, or the area governed by that government. --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me for posting again, it was just pointed out to me to stick to the point. I don't care enough about the rest of this to deal with the whole issue at this time, my goal of the RFC is: can we agree that Halifax, Nova Scotia is community and historical fact rather than referring to it as the city of Halifax? WayeMason 01:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Surely the metropolitan area of HRM meets the basic dictionary definition of a city. Whether that is reflected in the formal, legal name of the incorporated entity is beside the point in the context of general discussion. However, the WP article should use the formal terms as defined by the province. In other words, yes, Halifax is a city; it's just not formally called "The City Of Halifax." Let the articles reflect that.
--RobHutten 19:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The HRM provincial and federal governments all defines Halifax, Nova Scotia as the community where the city used to exist . They also define the Halifax Regional Municipality as the combine areas where Dartmouth, Halifax , Bedford and the former county of Halifax used to exist . However the communities such as Halifax , Dartmouth,Bedford, Peggys Cove and the 200 other places in HRM still exist as geograplical places . Furthermore Canada Post does not identify the "Halifax Regional Municipality" as a "postal address" nor will they deliever such unless the proper community (placename) is put on the address . It would have been a nightmare if impossible both to Canada Post and HRM have the address to be "Halifax Nova Scotia" in the whole HRM area as well . So what is the fuss where or what Halifax Nova Scotia is and what the Halifax Regional Municiplaity is when it all spelled out on the Nova Scotia , HRM and Government of Canada websites. I really like to know it has to different in the wikipedia articles ? Halifax, Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality are both not cities .--Sonyuser 19:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

ScottDavis is quite right, and puts it well. "Halifax, Nova Scotia" is the city. "Halifax Regional Municipality" is the municipal government of the region within which that city stands, including much else that is not that city. The City of Halifax was formerly the municipal government of that city. These are three different subjects. There was a time when Halifax, Nova Scotia was essentially coextensive with the bounds of the City of Halifax, although the material city and municipal government were conceptually different things, nevertheless. Halifax, Nova Scotia and Halifax Regional Municipality, though, are not the same even in so far as that, so re-directing one to the other is just not on. -- Lonewolf BC 20:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there must always be a critical distinction between different communities, even in a situation like the HRM. At this point, it seems that the HRM article is essentially the article for Halifax County, even though it explains the difference between it and other counties. We can, therefore, sensibly keep the articles about other communities in HRM. Thomasiscool 20:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Finally, agreement. This is what I have been saying all along. The city in HRM, of which Halifax is the centre, is not physically the same as the same as the City of Halifax. Thank you for that. Right now, the Halifax, Nova Scotia article as written has a map of the old City of Halifax, and has the history of the old City of Halifax, and talks about the neighbourhoods just in the old city of Halifax. The article would need to be completely re-written to be remotely factual about the "city" in the centre of the region. We need a History of Halifax article, which I suggest we rename to be the History of the City of Halifax. Put all the historic stuff there (which I have mostly done.) Now that leaves us with the issue of what goes on the urban page, and what goes on the HRM page.

Before we get into that issue, what is a city, what is urban, which goes on what page, can we just agree that as written right now the Halifax, Nova Scotia page does not meet even the most basic criteria of being an objective, NPOV article about the urban/suburban core of HRM????WayeMason 22:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Also it would be incorrect to put the census date for the dissolved City of Halifax down as the population of the city or urban part of HRM, n'est pas? WayeMason 22:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has been saying that the city of Halifax and is the same thing as the City of Halifax. Certainly I have been at pains to make that distinction. On the other hand, either "the city in HRM" is Halifax, (including Dartmouth), or else there is more than one city in HRM. In the former case, the respective "metropolitan areas" of Halifax and Dartmouth might conveniently be taken together as being "Halifax". This is essentially the view taken by McCann in The Canadian Encyclopedia. In the latter case, the "metropolitan area" of Halifax, alone, makes the sensible choice. (Note that this is not the same as the 1996 limits of the City of Halifax. It is roughly similar, just as one would expect, but a bit bigger, reflecting the physical expansion of Halifax between then and now, I assume.) This is the view implied by the provincial website on placenames, as I have said before. It is all one to me which view the WP article takes -- or it could consider both views.
The mismatch between the content of the article and the title of the article should be solved by amending the content. The mismatch was brought about by deliberately stripping material from this article and turning it into an article on the pre-1996 municipality. That can be undone. -- Lonewolf BC 23:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

With regard to census data, the right data for a given census is the data for the extent of Halifax at that time -- or the closest thing to, if the data was not prepared in exactly that way. -- Lonewolf BC 23:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me like the main thing that needs to be done is rewrite parts of the HRM article to make it clear that it is not 'Halifax', but rather the county surrounding Halifax. Thomasiscool 23:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The way forward is for you, Lonewolf, to start talking about concrete edits, amendments, and changes to the text of the article and see if we can come up with any kind of consensus. I have made several, the ball is now in your court. WayeMason 00:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ahem: [6]. -- Lonewolf BC 03:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I believe it would be inappropriate to refer to it as a either a City or a city in an encyclopedia article. I believe that it should reflect whatever the current law and government say. There should be no mention of Halifax (either the former city or the municipality) as a city, but only as a former city now. That being said, I personally refer to it as the City of Halifax, but then again I also refer to Dartmouth as the City of Dartmouth. I've never been a huge fan of amalgamation, but I believe in an encyclopedic entry it's important to keep my personal views to myself, and use the official terminology. However, Halifax (former city) is too cumbersome and simply looks stupid. I would recommend keeping the article named as is, but remove those references to Halifax being either a city or City. If you absolutely want to rename the article, what about something like Greater Halifax, Nova Scotia or Metropolitan Halifax, Nova Scotia or even Urban Halifax, Nova Scotia. --hfx_chris 11:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I have was sick last weekend and work is killing me. Lets try and work together to come to consensus and put this turkey to bed.

I don't think anyone has been saying that the city of Halifax and is the same thing as the City of Halifax.

Then the first sentence needs to make that clear. The map has to go it is totally misleading. The population has to go. It could read The Halifax urban area is the largest metropolitain area in Atlantic Canada, and is home the the Capital District of the province of Nova Scotia.

On the other hand, either "the city in HRM" is Halifax, (including Dartmouth), or else there is more than one city in HRM. In the former case, the respective "metropolitan areas" of Halifax and Dartmouth might conveniently be taken together as being "Halifax". This is essentially the view taken by McCann in The Canadian Encyclopedia. In the latter case, the "metropolitan area" of Halifax, alone, makes the sensible choice.

This needs to be qualified for clarity. Urban Halifax is not the same as the city of Halifax.

(Note that this is not the same as the 1996 limits of the City of Halifax. It is roughly similar, just as one would expect, but a bit bigger, reflecting the physical expansion of Halifax between then and now, I assume.)

The urban/suburban, or city area, of HRM actual is roughly 4 times the size of the City of Halifax, and encorporates Dartmouth, Bedford, Cole Harbour, Kearny Lake Road and Hammonds Plans to Lucasville, and the Bay Road to about Timberlea. Please see graphic, above.

This is the view implied by the provincial website on placenames, as I have said before. It is all one to me which view the WP article takes -- or it could consider both views.

I disagree, I don't think its implied at all, I think that it is a historical artifact, and reflects more postal naming schemes than anything relevant to actual built up urban area. I think its a stretch to extrapolate this from that.

The mismatch between the content of the article and the title of the article should be solved by amending the content. The mismatch was brought about by deliberately stripping material from this article and turning it into an article on the pre-1996 municipality.

If we change the article to be the urban area article, then it needs to focus on what, pre-amalgamation, was already called Metropolitan Halifax, which was administered in part by the Metropolitain Authority.

With regard to census data, the right data for a given census is the data for the extent of Halifax at that time -- or the closest thing to, if the data was not prepared in exactly that way.

The population with Dartmouth and Bedford alone with the City of Halifax would be 195K or so, and before HRM was created, the figure given for Metropolitan Halifax was usually 270Kish so the polulation is totally misleading.

Lets decide to either edit this article to be an actual Urban Halifax article, and make it about facts, or merge it into the Halifax Regional Municipality article and create an Urban Halifax section there. I think it is confusing as hell to someone not as schooled in the arcana and nuance of HRM/Halifax issues to have two articles here. It would be considerable clearer if we had a really well writen "urban halifax" section inside of HRM, and Halifax, Nova Scotia forward to the single article.

If we can come to consensus on proposed changes to make this a more comprehensive and accurate article about the urban, or city, area of HRM, that at least is a step forward. WayeMason 01:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I stand by my argument that, given the confusion surrounding the topic of the City (pre-1996) vs. a "city" (post-1996), we should wait until the Nova Scotia government clears the legal air, thus maintaining this page to discuss the old City (pre-1996) and subsequent municipality on the Halifax Regional Municipality article. Despite the dictionary definition that others have cited, Nova Scotia defies common logic and has no "cities" so it is very difficult to obtain concrete information about a very subjectively defined entity. See http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/muns/contact/ for more info.Plasma east 15:58, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

You'll all have to excuse me, but I don't really know that much about dispute resolution on Wikipedia. Discussion on this topic has nearly died off, with the bulk of the discussion ending around April 12. In fact, the last thing posted here by Lonewolf BC who, if I'm reading this correctly, seems to be one of the primary players in this debate, hasn't even said anything since April 12. So, how do we move forward from here? How do we resolve this and get the protect taken off this page, so we can move forward with Halifax-related topics? In other words, what happens next. --hfx_chris 13:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, to be totally fair to Lonewolf, I took over a week to respond the last time, because of work commitments. I feel that if we rush this that we risk it blowing wide open again when he returns. I have been checking his user contributions and he has only done one edit since my proposal above, so he has not been avoiding it. If someone else wants to start a vote on whether to keep or roll this article into something else... I still think a section on urban Halifax can be done best in the HRM article. We have a historic City of Halifax article at History of Halifax. Urban Halifax, Historic City of Halifax. Why ANOTHER article on Halifax? If you all decide to have the urban Halifax article on this page, fine, its a construct but I will participate and try and help make it as good as can be done under the circumstance. WayeMason 01:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Statscan urban area statistics are now available. According to statscan, the urban halifax area's population is 282,924[7], making it 100,000 larger than the former cities of Dartmouth and Halifax combined. If this is going to be a Halifax urban area article we should rewrite it with this figure in mind. WayeMason 18:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Lonewolf has started this article City of Halifax and has not been posting here. I am unclear how to wrap this up at this time. Maybe an lurking admins can advise what we do now, when one of the participants is not participating in coming to some kind of consensus and/or resolution.WayeMason 11:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Statscans urban area statistics are for the Halifax , Dartmouth and Bedford Areas the actual communities are determined by HRM itself not by statscan . To change anything it ready have to come to a vote before something can be done . However look at this discussion page it has become a annual if not a bi mouthly event . What is stopping someone just recreating the page later on ? --19960401 13:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC attempt at consensus

5086 words later (not including other related posts on this page) we are trying to end this dispute.

Four users have posted in favor of city of Halifax, four have posted in favour of an urban area solution, one has suggested that there is no consensus in real life in Nova Scotia and we have to report it as such, one asked what we are going to do to avoid having this dicussion again in 12 months.

The last two points are, I think, actually the things we need to be most mindfull of. We need to report that no consesus, and attempt to do so in a way that is complete, clear, and structured to avoid future confusion.

Folks, we need to pull together on this. Let me propose this:

1 - City of Halifax merges with History of Halifax, and we move the Georgraphy section and the Neighbourhood section from the Halifax, Nova Scotia article to this article.

2 - We create a Halifax Urban Area, Nova Scotia article, where we say "the urban or city area in HRM incompases Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford and parts of the adjacent county" and we spell it out. That article would be about the HRM and Census Canada defined urban area,using that statscan stats, and we spell out al the issues. Halifax and Dartmouth, the fact that the province calls each former city a metropolitan area and that that definition is different than the generally accepted definition of a metropolitan area, HRM says they are one urban area, census calls it an urban area. We explain in an encyclopedic and neutral fashion that this is confusing in part because HRM is one of the few municipalities in the world where the urban city metropolitan area is smaller than the government area. We spell it all out.

3 - The Halifax, NS article becomes a disambig page that links to:

• HRM
• Halifax Urban Area
• History of Halifax
• Halifax Peninsula
• Halifax Mainland

Thoughts? WayeMason 02:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I like that idea, anything's better than this embarrassment of an article that people currently searching up Halifax get. Overall, I would prefer Halifax, Nova Scotia simply redirect to HRM as before, but I've gone there a thousand times before and I don't really give a damn at this point. Anything's better than the current situation. I consider Dartmouth a part of 'Halifax'. That's all, Sprocket 02:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Halifax,Nova Scotia and Dartmouth are too different communities in HRM's website if HRM has 200 or more communities and Halifax and Dartmouth are differnt than there should separate pages for the three of them . The HRM page does not even come close to the description of what the HAlifax Regional Municipality is really is - a diverse municipality . 19960401 13:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea, WayeMason. The name "Halifax" could mean any number of different things to a Nova Scotian. Are you referring to HRM? The old City of Halifax? The current community of Halifax? Metro Halifax? The name "Halifax" has been applied to too many different things, a disambiguation page at Halifax, Nova Scotia would break down the confusion, let people know that simply looking up "Halifax" could mean any number of things, and let the user decide what article they want to look at. I support this suggestion. --199.212.16.20 12:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

19960401, there _are_ pages for Bedford • Chebucto Peninsula • Cole Harbour & Westphal • Cow Bay & Eastern Passage • Dartmouth • Eastern Shore East • Eastern Shore West • Mainland Halifax • Halifax Peninsula • Hammonds Plains, Upper Sackville & Beaver Bank • Lake Echo & Porters Lake • Lawrencetown • Musquodoboit Valley & Dutch Settlement • Preston & Cherrybrook • Prospect • St. Margaret's Bay • Timberlea, Lakeside, Beechville, of which some have good articles, some have mediocre, and two are barely there. The issue here is about putting some clarity around "Halifax" not the HRM page, which I admit needs some work, but really, I don't think its appropriate to expect the HRM page to have as much on Sheet Harbour as it has on the urban core, for example.

I have asked Lonewolf to participate in this closure, he has not. If there are no further issues, I will ask the admin to unlock the page as soon as the urban area article has been started. WayeMason 23:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

All of the changes are done. The proposed disambig page would look like this:

The City of Halifax was amalgamated into the Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996. As a result, the name Halifax, Nova Scotia may refer to any of the following:

• Halifax Regional Municipality - the regional government created in 1996
  • Halifax Urban Area - the urban area at the core of the region
  • Halifax County, Nova Scotia - the Nova Scotia county and former municipality
  • City of Halifax - the history and other information about the town (1749-1841) and City of Halifax (1841-1996
  • Halifax Peninsula - a community in the Halifax Regional Municipality, located in the urban core
  • Mainland Halifax - a suburban community located in the west of the Halifax Regional Municipality

WayeMason 10:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

These are not good ideas, for reasons that I hope to find time to explain tomorrow. -- Lonewolf BC 07:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Please, please, PLEASE put together a proposal that attempts to build a consensus, by amendment to the proposal currently on the table, or counter-proposal that keeps in mind and represents the views that are contrary to yours..WayeMason 10:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capital of Nova Scotia is:

The capital of Nova Scotia is HRM, please see this press release establishing the Capital Commission in HRM [8] and the legislation creating the Capital Commission. [9]WayeMason 10:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The capital of Nova Scotia is Halifax, because that is where the legislature and such are. That is why the article in The Canadian Encyclopedia says so. The capital may also be HRM, is a different and more specialised sense. -- Lonewolf BC 17:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That is absolute and total nonsense. You could then say it is correct to say that Halifax Peninsula and Downtown Halifax are also the capital because they also used to be cities and used to be the capitals, back before the city grew and changed. The LAW says that there is a capital in HRM. You are now misrepresenting and replacing facts and laws with your own views.WayeMason 18:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No, that's just using plain English: A capital, by common understanding, is the city in which the government of the political unit is located. In the case of Nova Scotia, that city is Halifax. The special legal definition of the capital of Nova Scotia is -- and I take your word for this -- Halifax Regional Municipality, but legislation often has special definitions for things. Again, by common understanding, a capital city means the whole city. Sometimes "capital" is also used to mean the part of a capital city where the government buildings are. Moscow is the capital of Russia; so is the Kremlin. I don't know that any part of Halifax is customarily referred to in that way, but if it is then that is also correct. This does not make it any less correct to call Halifax the capital of Nova Scotia. It is you who is making an "original research" interpretation -- that the details of the legislation must affect or take priority over the common understanding, for the purposes of an encyclopedia. Perhaps you should argue with McCann. As of now, you have no source to back your interpretation. -- Lonewolf BC 18:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Your common understanding is not footnote-able. I have provided sources. Your tone remains a disappointment. I know you feel passionately that you are right, but again, no one profits if you continue to argue your point verbatim without dialog that leads toward any kind of consensus. I have tried to engage you directly in dialog on your talk page, and have tried to suggest several frameworks for resolving this dispute and several times have suggested compromise wording or strategy, but you have, as of this writing, not attempted to participate in any of these solutions. Right now the record shows five users since January changing the page to read some form of "community and former city" and one user, you, changing it back.

Please review Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes, and also Wikipedia:Request_for_comments(you should be following the suggested model for an RFC which you have not as of this time) and Wikipedia:Civility for guidance as well. I am not going to be bullied by you. I will dialog with you about a meaningful compromise that represents the opposing views on the page, or otherwise incorporates a compromise. You may want to keep this in mind, and start communicating in a constructive way, that will result in us getting on with make good wiki. WayeMason 00:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

My "common understanding" may be found in any dictionary. You've given sources that do not support you except by your "original research" interpretation of them. On the other hand, standard reference works straightforwardly support that Halifax is a city, and the capital of Nova Scotia. Spare me your rhetoric and attempted villainisation of me, and please stop making this out to be personal. I do not mean to hurt your feelings or sound harsh by trying to stay brief and to-the-point, but these are simple matters of fact. Wikipedia is not the place to promote pet points-of-view, which seems to be what you and a few others are doing, I am sorry to say. -- Lonewolf BC 01:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

if these references are indeed so straightforward, then why not produce one (post-April 1996, of course)? When was the Canadian Encyclopedia article written? WayeMason has produced two citeable sources that refer explicitly to HRM being the capital of Nova Scotia - this is not a question of interpretation, unless HRM is to be considered an unreliable source? Be careful too with what may appear to be straightforward for as WayeMason and perhaps others have pointed out on talk pages here on this is that since '96 many including HRM themselves refer to HRM, in less formal language use, as 'Halifax'. Mayumashu 15:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Britannica says:

As if The Canadian Encyclopedia were not enough, Britannica likewise says of Halifax, "city, capital of Nova Scotia, Canada,...". Britannica Concise says the same, and also notes the 1996 amalgamation while giving different 2001 populations for the city (119,292) and the municipality (359,183), thus making plain that city and municipality are not identical. Surely that trumps the "original research" interpretations to the contrary that a few WP editors wish to make from primary sources and personal observations. So can we please make an end of these issues? Halifax is a city, the capital of Nova Scotia, and not the same thing as Halifax Regional Municipality.
-- Lonewolf BC 21:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Primary sources are considered more authoritative than secondary sources... HRM Government here:[10] provincial legislation here [11] WayeMason 10:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

This Britannia article refers to population info from 1991 - doesn't this suggest that it's dated? And no mention is made of HRM, which too suggests this hasn t been updated. These points do not refute outright the validity of this source, but call it into question Mayumashu 16:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Primay sources are not necessarily more authoritative than secondary ones, and in any case you are making an interpretation of primary sources, which is "original research", and as such is forbidden on Wikipedia. -- Lonewolf BC 23:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not obviously not original research to point to legislation and say "here is where it says this thing," or a press release that says "HRM is the capital of Nova Scotia". WayeMason 23:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It is original research to take a act that does not directly deal with what is or is not the capital of Nova Scotia, and a quotation from the mayor in an HRM press release, wherein he says "...Halifax Regional Municipality faces unique challenges as the capital of Nova Scotia and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada...", and conclude from them that Halifax is not the capital of Nova Scotia. -- Lonewolf BC 02:04, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

but this at least says that someone of authority (the mayor of HRM) considers HRM the capital, something you have not been willing to admit thus far. compromising language that allows for both non-official views is in order, something like, 'The capital of Nova Scotia is city of Halifax, taken by some to refer to what constituted the City of Halifax until April 1, 1996, and by others (including its mayor [source]) to be the whole of Halifax Regional Municipality.' Mayumashu 16:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page protection again

I protected the page again due to the ongoing back and forth. The structure of the first sentence is a bit odd "...is the capital the province of...". Also why have the population figures for Halifax not been updated to the 2006 Census? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Point 1- error, I guess we have been so busy whipping the page back and forth no one had time for actual editing 2 - If you look at it, the census [12] these are teh 2006 stats for the HRM. Statscan only maintains former city stats for historical reasons, but because it is no longer a primary municipality, they don't give it a community profile. They maintain it here as [13] as Halifax Nova Scotia (City / Dissolved)WayeMason 22:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The second of the two links is for the 2001 Census. There should then be a link to Halifax Nova Scotia (City/Dissolved) for the 2006 Census. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The have not done the data yet, its not published, you see, because its not a community. It is a historical data set. Yes I am editorialising, but thats why it is not there. Look here [14] and type in Halifax and you will see its not there yet.WayeMason 22:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The oddity with the opening sentence is just an oversight. It was meant to be "...is the capital of the province of Nova Scotia...", I believe, but I think just "...is the capital of Nova Scotia..." would be better. -- Lonewolf BC 02:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New category, perfect for this page

Category:Former cities in Canada. Perfectly designed of the headache that is Halifax. Cheers. Kevlar67 02:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

PS why not just call this Old Halifax to match Old Toronto? Kevlar67 15:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Because at this time no one actually calls it that. WayeMason 01:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, why not? What do they call it? Kevlar67 04:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

A brief summary? Verifiable Footnotable Information

• HRM uses the following terms:
  • Urban Core - peninsula Halifax and Dartmouth inside the circumferential
  • Western Region -Peninsula, Mainland, suburban and rural commutershed to the old county line
  • Halifax Peninsula for the peninsula planning area
  • Halifax Peninsula Community Council - community council for the peninsula
  • Mainland Halifax for the old city mainland area
  • Chebucto Community Council - community council for the peninsula
• Province of Nova Scota
  • Halifax metropolitan area for the old city of Halifax (which is the opposite of the generally meaning of metropolitan area which is normally used to describe the commutershed that is larger than the incorporated city)
• Statscan
  • Halifax (former city) - the old bounderies
  • Halifax Urban Area (270K people, includes Halifax and Dartmouth, Bedford, commutershed)
• Service Canada
  • Halifax Economic Area - the commutershed, or Urban Area

Somewhat verifiable (via CBC, etc) but really not yet encyclopedia ready

• Regular Everyday People - People from outside HRM
  • Halifax or "the city" - most people say this for the urban area. My brother in law is from Chester, he said when I told him of this debate "nobody in the province says 'I am going to Dartmouth and Halifax' when they are going into the city to shop at Mic Mac Mall and Bayers Lake, they are going to Halifax"
• Regular Everyday People - from inside HRM urban area
  • Halifax - I live in the south or west end of the city, I say I am from Halifax. People from the peninsula always do this. People from Mainland sometimes do this. People from Dartmouth never do this when speaking in Halifax and Nova Scotia. As a kid, from Dartmouth, living in Toronto and London, UK, I always said I was from Halifax, because Dartmouth, well, who knew were that was?
  • Fairview/Clayton Park/Spryfield - I was at a Metro Basketball League finals game the other day and the kids from the mainland said "I am from <insert suburb name>." My son said "I am from Halifax".
• The Media
  • the city - for urban Halifax. CBC Nova Scotia, the Herald and other local news sources use the word city when they are referring to the HRM ( This is footnoteable.) though they are really talking about the urban area
  • Metro - Halifax/Dartmouth/Bedford used to be called "Metropolitan Halifax" and the Metrpolitan Halifax Authority was the regional coodinating body that ran things like Metro Transit, and waste removal.

anyone have anything to add to that, or did I get them all? :) WayeMason 10:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• • GeoNova shows Halifax like this Halifax - Dartmouth area ( just zoom in for detail) as for Stats Canada you can still get the population for both Halifax and dartmouth but you need get the software which is $65 to get it . They usually do not release such numbers for another year .--Sonyuser 14:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I can get the 2006 population by zooming and counting the indiviual tracts and adding it up--Sonyuser 19:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Note on de-archiving of the hereabove

The material above this section was archived on May 15 and June 12, 2007, but restored on October 16. -- Lonewolf BC 00:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing!

I've got no association at all with Halifax, NS or Canada, and having had a look at all the Halifax articles, I gotta say that the word that comes to mind is "confusing".

I'm not sure why provincial/local government boundaries are considered of such significance in how the articles are organised. This is of no interest to anyone outside Canada, and I'd bet of debatable interest even to most Canadians. A city, meaning an overall built-up area with a distinct history, culture and demographic makeup, can exist independently of how govt boundaries are drawn.

For example, I'm in Australia, which doesn't even use urban areas as local govt entities. That doesn't stop people referring to places like "Sydney" or "Melbourne" without causing confusion. There is in fact a City of Sydney local govt area, but it only covers the Sydney CBD, which is a tiny fraction of the area commonly known as Sydney. 99% of people browsing Wikipedia neither know nor care about it (nor is there any reason why they should care). When someone wants to know more about "Sydney", the information they're after can be found at Sydney, the obvious place to look.

I'd bet that when someone wants to find out more about "Halifax, Nova Scotia", what they mean is the urban area, with its distinct history and culture. However, half of the information they're after is at Halifax Regional Municipality, and the other half at City of Halifax. A regional municipality is an entity in the Canadian local govt system which nobody outside Canada would be interested in; treating it as the main point for information about Halifax seems misguided at best. Even Halifax Urban Area, the other obvious place to look, contains relatively little of interest. All of this is needlessly cluttered and confusing, and only makes the wiki less usable for people who aren't already familiar with Halifax and its environs. -- Hongooi 08:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Checking the archives, I see this is something that has come up repeatedly in the past. Well, just so that I'm adding something constructive, how about the following:

• Halifax, Nova Scotia - includes most of the information currently in HRM and City of Halifax, including history, suburbs, culture, demographics, locations of note, etc
• Halifax Regional Municipality - specific information about how Halifax is governed (cf New York City Council, City of Sydney, Greater London Authority)
• City of Halifax - specific information about the area of Halifax within the old boundaries (cf Lower Manhattan, Sydney central business district, City of London)
• Halifax Urban Area - mostly unchanged

-- Hongooi 08:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Or even more simply:

• Rename current Halifax Regional Municipality -> Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Rename current City of Halifax -> History of Halifax (ie, reverse current redirect)
• Rename current Halifax, Nova Scotia -> Halifax, Nova Scotia (disambiguation)

-- Hongooi 09:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I support this. --Kmsiever 15:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Halifax Nova Scotia is not the Halifax Regional Municipality

The proper article the applies to the term "Halifax, Nova Scotia is the article City of Halifax the area designated by both the province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality as "Halifax , Nova Scotia. Putting Halifax Regional Municipality as Halifax, Nova Scotia caused more confusion as thier 207 other places within the HRM including place like Sable Island which is part of the Halifax Regional Municipality . Like how many times wikipedia editors have changed Halifax Nova Scotia changed when 1. its the wrong term and 2. Not verifiable . Please leave it alone .--19960401 16:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see why this is important. I live in Sydney. I also live in Hornsby. This is explained by the fact that Hornsby is a part of the broader Sydney urban area, which is what people generally mean when they use the term "Sydney". I never have to explain to people that I don't live in the City of Sydney, and the fact that the article is called Sydney as opposed to "Sydney urban area", "Greater Sydney", or some other awkward construction doesn't cause problems.

Similarly, just because an obscure island 100 miles out in the Atlantic is part of the HRM is not going to cause confusion if the HRM article is renamed to "Halifax, Nova Scotia". The only mention of Sable Island in the HRM article is one line pertaining to offshore resources; 99.9% of the information in the article pertains to the Halifax urban area. If people want specific information about Sable Island, as opposed to the overall Halifax area, they are not going to search for "Halifax" in any case. They will go straight to the Sable Island article itself, so your objection is moot. -- Hongooi 00:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This map from the Halifax Regional Municipality itself shows that Halifax, Nova Scotia is only the area designated by the NS government as a community .--19960401 17:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the NS government has designated "Halifax" as a regional municipality. And...? Nobody said otherwise. This has nothing to do with the entity that people from outside Canada, or indeed people in Canada, call "Halifax". What the NS government chooses to use for regional boundaries is a matter for the NS government alone. -- Hongooi 00:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that you are both at least partly right. As Hongooi observes, firstly, the articles concerning Halifax are badly organised and thus needlessly confusing, and, secondly, most anyone consulting an encyclopedia expects to find basic information about Halifax, Nova Scotia in an article entitled "Halifax, Nova Scotia" (or just "Halifax", arguably) and conversely expects "Halifax, Nova Scotia" to hold such information. At the same time, Halifax Regional Municipality does not rightly equate with Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax is that centuries-old human settlement which is now grown into a large city -- though, curiously for a city, it lacks any municipal government (or governments) unto itself. Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), by contrast, is the municipal government of all of Halifax County, including Halifax, the city. Much the greater part of Halifax County is countryside, dotted with many separate towns and villages that are not part of Halifax, the city. The regional municipality is thus roughly the same thing as Halifax County. (To split hairs, the regional municipality is the municipal government of the area while the area itself is Halifax County.) Failure to distinguish Halifax (the city) from Halifax Regional Municipality is thus akin to failure to distinguish between the Zürich and the Canton of Zürich.
Much of the material in "Halifax Regional Municipality" belongs in a "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article. In fact, the article on the regional municipality has largely been turned into the article that most readers would expect to find under "Halifax Nova Scotia". Other material in it pertains only to the regional municipality at large, though, and (as just shown) the two topics are not truly identical. Thus simply re-titling the article on the regional municipality would not be sensible. Rather, the article on "Halifax, Nova Scotia" should be restored -- which is essentially to say the same thing as the first point in Hoogai's first proposal.
-- Lonewolf BC 03:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

We have a disambig page because it is confusing. It points people to appropriate articles. Please read the archived discussion to understand how we ended up with this compromise. WayeMason 13:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

At risk of sounding inflammatory, it wasn't clear to me that consensus was reached. In Archive3, there was a proposal from User:WayeMason, which User:Lonewolf BC disagreed with but is yet to construct a complete alternative proposal. I'm not sure who I agree with, except User:Hongooi because his/her arguments from analogy make sense to me. I'm not sure what the best proposal is, but I offer the following comments:

• The arrangement of articles needs to make sense to people outside Nova Scotia, not just those inside it.
• The pre-1996 city of Halifax might not exist now as a legal identity - but it did, and there are a large number of articles in WP that refer to events that occurred in that place in that time. For example, it would be ridiculous to talk about a 19th-century person who was born or who died in a location, with that location pointing to an article about legal entity that only came into being in 1996. We need to be able to accurately place current and future articles that occur in Halifax (for any definition of Halifax), but also to correctly (and, I would assert, intuitively) link in articles about past events.

To develop User:Hongooi's comments a little more:

• Most people who use WP would (correctly) expect an article on Sydney, Australia to be about an area measuring roughly 12,000 km² that contains 4 million people, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and hosted the Olympics in 2000 - the (lowercase) city.
• The (uppercase) City of Sydney, which is a legal and governmental entity, is only about 25 km², contains only 150,000 people, and doesn't contain said Bridge or the Olympics venues.

If I told anyone that I don't live in Sydney (on the basis that I'm about 15 km from the City of Sydney boundary), they would think I'd lost all grasp on reality. WP acknowledges the reality of the legal entity of the City of Sydney, but also acknowledges that the world at large has an accurate understanding of what "Sydney" is that does not match with the legal reality. People and governments here sometimes use the term "Greater Sydney" to mean the (lowercase) city of Sydney (in contrast to the (uppercase) City of Sydney), but I wouldn't expect many people outside of Sydney to know or care about that term, so I'm in no hurry to create a redirect for it, let alone an article.

I believe that the set of pages for the Halifax should work in a similar way. They need to make sense to the 99.9% of people who don't live in Halifax, just like the Sydney pages make sense to the 99.9% of people who don't live in Sydney. Acknowledge the legal entities, but also acknowledge the reality that the common understanding of what Halifax, Nova Scotia is doesn't match that legal entity (and maybe, like Sydney, never will). Whatever article is placed at Halifax, Nova Scotia should reflect that common understanding, and (like Sydney), include links to the article that explains the legal/governmental entity. And, ideally, the 1600 odd articles that refer to famous people or events that took place in the city (which might also have been the City, until 1996) of Halifax should be able to link to the correct place through Halifax, Nova Scotia, without having to be disambiguated. Paddles ^T_C 17:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. --Kmsiever 15:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Halifax Harbour

I've added Halifax Harbour to the page, mainly because I've been doing some stuff that refers to the port of Halifax, and I previously didn't know where to link it to. Now I do, I find it's not on the Disambiguation page, so I've added it. But I feel I'm diving into a can of worms by doing so, so apologies!
And I agree with the above; it is confusing as it is! Xyl 54 16:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll toss in my 2 cents as well. I agree with the above. This current arrangement clearly does not follow the principle of least astonishment and is needlessly confusing. Remember that consensus can change, and in this case it seems to have. Am I wrong here? heqs ·:. 11:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No your not "Halifax, Nova Scotia" today is the area described in the page City of Halifax according the Civic Addressing and survey offices of the Halifax Regional Municipality See Map of the Halifax and surrounding communities of the Halifax Regional Municipality from HRM GIS and Halifax Regional Municipality Community List . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 19960401 (talk • contribs) 17:02, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shambles

This disambiguation page is a shambles, and is clearly the consequence of an incredibly unhelpful edit war. Any person not entirely familiar with the peculiarities of local government in the Atlantic Provinces (e.g. me, and probably most other Wikipedia readers) would expect the article "Halifax, Nova Scotia" to be the main article about the capital of Nova Scotia. Not so. Furthermore, when presented with this page, it is not at all obvious to an outsider which article they need to read, which transpires to be the one entitled Halifax Regional Municipality. How is anyone supposed to tell that? To someone who doesn't know what a "Regional Municipality" is, it's impossible.

I've made a quick fix to that, but the split of information across the City of Halifax, Halifax Regional Municipality and Halifax Urban Area articles is really unhelpful. Worse still, comments on articles such as "[...] and often simply, although incorrectly, as Halifax" appear to me to be more like POV-pushing digs at other editors than encyclopaedic information.

While this situation may have been a compromise that was reached to end an edit war, it is most unsatisfactory to the general reader. --RFBailey 04:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up this page. It was evolving into its own article and looking less like a dab page. Hopefully things are a little clearer. --Kmsiever 15:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but it still doesn't solve the problem of this being a dab page. --RFBailey 16:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

See Talk:Halifax, West Yorkshire#Discussion for a little more on this. Andrewa 20:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

To my mind, it neither was a compromise nor had a proper consensus. Be that as it may, it is, as RFBailey observes, "most unsatisfactory to the general reader." -- Lonewolf BC 22:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The page move discussion going on at Halifax, West Yorkshire really highlights why this situation is a mess. In short, the argument being used by the proponent of that move was essentially that Halifax, NS isn't called Halifax, but is called "Halifax Regional Municipality" (and he was more-or-less quoting directly from the article), so therefore the one in Yorkshire is clearly the most important out of all the others (taking Halifax, Massachusetts as the next largest). Had the main article here been entitled Halifax, Nova Scotia this argument wouldn't have been available. But it goes to show why something really, really needs to be done here! --RFBailey 22:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to pile on, the current situation is far less than ideal. To anyone new to the discussion, read User:Hongooi's extensive comments above and his use of the example of Sydney are instructive. I would add London to his argument. City of London, Greater London, Greater London Urban Area, &c. are articles of their own that discuss aspects specific to the repsective entities (often administrative and statistical points) but the bulk of the information on the city in general is at London as it should be. The different definitions of London are discussed (not merely listed) in the first section of the London article making it easy for those seeking a specific administrative unit to find it. Granted it will take real work to selectively move information from Halifax Regional Municipality and City of Halifax to Halifax, Nova Scotia but Wikipedia will be well-served by it. — AjaxSmack 00:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

"...Wikipedia will be well-served by it."
Yes. Very much so. I tried for something along those lines, early this year. Other folk had a different idea. Although they were but few, they were more than myself and (as I recall) the one or two others with similar views to mine, and they posted faster and more aggressively. Things ended up much as they had been before.
-- Lonewolf BC 05:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that's not quite how it went: Re-reading the old discussion just now, I see that most commenters essentially agreed with me.
-- Lonewolf BC 06:51, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

You never met a flame war you could walk away from, eh? And you know that is not true. WayeMason 13:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

I suggest that we need an article similar to the London article, giving an overview of all the various things in Nova Scotia that are or have been called Halifax, something that someone like me with no previous idea of the various complications can read without getting confused. This article should link to more detailed articles on the various legal and/or historical entities on which there's enough information to justify a separate article.

In view of all the discussion that precedes this (see particularly Talk:Halifax, Nova Scotia/Archive3 but the earlier archives have more of the same) I'd like consensus on this before I'm much interested in going any further. However, I'll foreshadow we're I'm headed... We need to next decide the name of this article. Personally I'd call it Halifax, Nova Scotia, and have only one disambiguation, currently at Halifax, which already includes all the entries of the lower-level diambiguation page currently at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

But this is negotiable, and cuts across some past decisions. What matters most to me is just that this new top-level article is created, by whatever name. Comments? Andrewa 07:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

These are all good ideas and the name Halifax, Nova Scotia is a good location. At a minimum, it would require reassembling the former History of Halifax material along with general geographical and cultural info. Ideally the proportion of material in the main article vis-à-vis the City and HRM should be quite large. (By comparison, the quantity of London material in he main article is very roughly 10:3:3 compared with City of London and Greater London; Sydney is 5:1 in relation to the City of Sydney.)

For those opposed to one main Halifax article, please step back and think about "When a reader enters a given term in the Wikipedia search box and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? " I would wager that for most users, wading through two or three disambiguation pages only to find that there is no article on Halifax, Nova Scotia and that a rather detailed understanding of Nova Scotia's administrative structure is necessary merely to find out basic information on the city is not ideal. — AjaxSmack 19:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't why we need to have one main Halifax article, nor why we need to reassemble any of the former material, nor why we need the proportion of material in the main article to be large. Personally I'd keep the high-level article as short as possible, with links to more detailed articles. Having a longish top-level article can work too but personally I don't think it's the best way.

But more to the point, it's not the best way to start. We can and should start with a short article. If others, including yourself, want to then expand this article, that's a different issue. It's far more important for this top-level article to exist than it is for it to be a particular length, short or long. Provided it has a good lead section, it will remove the problems that you and others have highlighted.

Again, see London... which is not a particularly good lead section IMO but still does the job of clarifying a very confusing situation. For example, the British Houses of Parliament aren't in London in a legalistic sense. They're in Westminster. Andrewa 21:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The Term "Halifax , Nova Scotia " is the Area in the article City of Halifax . not the Halifax Regional Municipality which is incorrect according to the Nova Scotia government. There are 200 communities within the Halifax Regional Municipalty and each are civic divisions for civic addressing which means they separate places . Also places like Bedford, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia also have separate histories to both the Halifax Regional Municipality and Halifax, Nova Scotia . The term Halifax Regional Municipality only represents the municipal governce of the area and is also not use as a location as at represents a very large area . Also the Halifax Regional Municipality is not a incorporated city nor there are any incorporated cities in Nova Scotia--19960401 02:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe to someone from there. But to those of use outside of HRM, there's no difference. Just like people outside of Vancouver use "Vancouver" to refer to more than just Vancouver proper. --Kmsiever 04:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Even HRM council is debating whether or not to change the name of the HRM to just be "Halifax" this situation is far from clear. I strongly support a merger of Halifax, NS and HRM, NS page with clear descriptions of the different uses of Halifax in one article. As was said above, it cuts across all the arguements and documents it and puts it on one page.WayeMason 13:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia does pay attention to official names, but we don't slavishly follow them, for just reasons such as these. The whims of bureaucrats don't impress us overly! Instead, we have Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Well worth a read.

Or to put it another way, the statement which is incorrect has no great bearing on Wikipedia article names. It belongs to the era of now-discredited prescriptive linguistics. Instead of asking what should people say? recent linguists ask what do people say?, and Wikipedia's guidelines follow this school of thought. Andrewa 10:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's now been a couple of days and nobody has yet opposed the proposal. There's been some repetition of the various POVs as to what Halifax means in some sense of correctness which has little relevance to Wikipedia's article naming practice anyway, but little discussion of the issue I raised, which is the need for a top-level article whatever it is called. So do I go ahead and create the article? I think I'll call it Halifax, Nova Scotia (temporary article name) because I can't think of a better one than Halifax, Nova Scotia. But I'm open to suggestions.

And at the risk of rererepeating myself, the article name is a separate issue. Andrewa 06:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

For more of what I'm on about here, see London, City of London and Greater London, three different articles. The issues are not identical but look at how well the information is presented in these three articles. Both people with no preconceptions as to what the word London means and others with strong and conflicting views on its meaning can all find the article they want with a minimum of fuss. We can and should do as well here. Andrewa 06:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal for an article, your choice of name, and your contention that the name choice is a separate issue. One possible location for the article could be Halifax, Nova Scotia/New article, something I've seen done somewhere else on Wikipedia. I don't have the knowledge or time to help so good luck. — AjaxSmack 03:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be best to turn this title back into a proper article, and move its the present contents to Halifax, Nova Scotia (disambiguation), or perhaps better yet just integrate them with Halifax (disambiguation). This is the title where people will expect to find information on Halifax, Nova Scotia. Any other title will make for awkward and troublesome linking. As with London, differing concepts "Halifax, Nova Scotia" can be accounted for in its article without too much trouble. There is, so far as I can find, little disagreement about that among standard reference works, though.
-- Lonewolf BC 04:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

When last I looked, Halifax (disambiguation) contained (duplicated) all the entries of the disambig at [[Halifax, Nova Scotia, and wasn't too long for that. So I question whether there's any need for a second disambiguation page just for the Canadian entries. Andrewa 11:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

For the record --- I am entirely in favour of an article on "Halifax" that incorporates ALL the various uses of the word Halifax to describe places in Nova Scotia. I am glad to see growing consensus that we need to revamp these articles.

I pointed out that even the government is arguing to change the name not because I feel the govt is a definitive source, but to point out to those of you who have been participating in this discussion for over 3 years that even the government is starting to refer to the whole area as Halifax. the main arguement of people who wanted to perpetuate historic place names as the only current fact have certainly been happy to use the government websites as quote definitive sources endquote! But things are changing, and evolving, and that change and evolution should be a part of the wikipedia article!

I am glad to yet another person in this discussion making the point that we don't just follow the dictat of technocrats or out of date govt sources. Andrewa wrote Instead of asking what should people say? recent linguists ask what do people say?, and Wikipedia's guidelines follow this school of thought. As I have said repeatedly, the media and the man on the street refers to metro, or urban Halifax as "Halifax," but also when talking about local issues inside of Halifax, they will still use local place names like "Dartmouth."

Many people beside myself have argued against the appropriateness of a Halifax, Nova Scotia article that does not clearly define the difference between the old administrative area of the City of Halifax, and the modern definition of Halifax, which is far more flexible and ambiguous. The article needs to recognize that outside of the Halifax Regional Municipality, most people just refer to the whole area as Halifax.

I would say that in line with the London example, I would like the see a Halifax, Nova Scotia article that would absorb most of the current Halifax Urban Area, Halifax Regional Municipality articles. I think the City of Halifax article should be maintained, to describe the historical town and city 1749-1996.

As has been stated repeatedly, the issues here are difficult in part because 1 - there is no general agreement on naming conventions either officially or in everyday use 2 - the municipal government itself uses different definitions of urban and rural depending on which department is doing the talking and 3 - politically motivated editors continue to try and insert their own POV.

All I want, and have ever wanted, is a full and complete picture of what is really going on on the ground here in Halifax and area, the best most comprehensive wiki article we can produce, that lets people from "away" understand the complexities around self-identity here now since amalgamation. Not trying to perpetuate old divisions as "facts" nor create new labels that have no legitimacy in the real world. Lets make good wiki! As long as we are all working on that, then let's, as we say, giv'er. WayeMason 01:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Halifax, Nova Scotia is the legal community name for what is covered in the article City of Halifax. Halifax Regional Municipality is not ,Halifax Nova Scotia legally either . What HRM council (and it is not even pass yet ) is rename Halifax Regional Municipality just plain Halifax as Halifax, Nova Scotia is proposed to be separate from Halifax .--19960401 01:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Please read the above discussion thoroughly. While what you say about the names of legal entities is (as far as I can tell) accurate, your logic is what contributes to the shambolic situation we have. To quote from an earlier remark, "Wikipedia does pay attention to official names, but we don't slavishly follow them [...]". While Halifax may (under present local government arrangements) not have any legal status, it is still a well-known entity. According to the Wikipedia Naming conventions:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

In this case, the name "Halifax, Nova Scotia" is what would most easily be recognised. Yes, there should still be an article about the Halifax RM, in the same way that we have an article about the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall (a local government district), but that article coexists with the one on Walsall (the town after which it is named). Excessive pedantry is detrimental to Wikipedia. --RFBailey 01:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of pedantry myself, it is by definition excessive. But I heartily support these comments. Andrewa 11:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Halifax, Nova Scotia, can refer to Halifax/Dartmouth, Halifax, Halifax Peninsula, Halifax Regional Municipality, and urban Halifax. 19960401, they are all correct, depending on context. Driving to work today the CBC again referred to damage in the "city of Halifax" after Noel this weekend, as apposed to rural Haifax. They were referring the to the Nova Scotia Hospital being damaged, and that is in Dartmouth, Woodside to be precise. This is but one example. The CBC, Herald, and CTV all use Halifax to refer to metro Halifax, including Dartmouth and Bedford. Our job is to document ALL of these usesWayeMason 20:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Radio and TV stations nor do the Newspapers in the Halifax Regional Municipality do not have the authority to give out place names onlly the Halifx Regional Municipality Civic Address office does . Halifax, Nova Scotia is the area that is legally name that is covered in the article City of Halifax for the present name is Halifax ,Nova Scotia given by the Halifax Regional Municipality .There 190 other legal and separate placenames in the HRM as well and they do not refer themselves as Halifax --19960401 14:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC).

Yes, we understand that Nova Scotia placenames (and administrative areas) have a legal definition, and that local (or provincial) governments have the authority over that legal definition. And: yes, we understand that Halifax is not the HRM (as your edit summary puts it)--that was my point about Walsall, which is in a similar situation. However, we are supposed to be writing an encyclopaedia, and the Naming conventions which I quoted above are what should be followed; in particular, what is in most common usage. This includes what is used by the media, as well as what is used by "the man in the street" (in the Halifax area, in the rest of Canada, and beyond). Thus the "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article should describe both the legal and common usages of the name. It should not be a disambiguation page. --RFBailey 14:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The term "Halifax Nova Scotia" only refers to the area and the present unincorporated area that used to be City of Halifax and does refer anywhere else in the Halifax Regional Municipality . Making HRM -- Halifax Nova Scotia confuses of which area the article is suppose to teell sa there are 199 other places within the HRM other than Halifax .--19960401 16:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by your second sentence--if it had proper spelling and grammar it would help. As I have said several times, there should be articles about both Halifax and the HRM. The Halifax article would describe the area covered by the article City of Halifax, for sure. But the common usage of the term "Halifax" is to refer to the urban area (i.e. Metro Halifax), and there is material in the Halifax Urban Area article which is also relevant. On top of that, a lot of the stuff in the current HRM article doesn't pertain to the local government area as much as it does to Halifax itself, or the immediate surrounding area (e.g. the list of buildings).

No-one is doubting the existence of the "199 other places" in the HRM that are not Halifax, so I fail to see what you are worried about there. --RFBailey 16:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The Halifax Urban Area article is based mostly on the Stats Canada Area for the most part is a statistical area . I do agree on your statment that the current HRM article doesn't pertain to the local government area because it focuses to much on the Halifax City of Halifax area too much , than discribing the diversity of the municipality as a whole . Which is complicated .--19960401 18:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attempt at a compromise article

I've attempted to make a first draft of a new Halifax, Nova Scotia article, in my userspace here. It's in a very rough-and-ready form, and needs a lot of tidying, sorting, and being made consistent, as well as a proper opening, before it's ready. But it should give an idea as to what I believe that article should contain. If implemented, it would replace the City of Halifax article as well as the current disambiguation page, and would also contain material transferred from the Halifax Regional Municipality article, and from the Halifax Urban Area article too.

Thoughts are welcome! --RFBailey 19:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A second version is now available. --RFBailey 03:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)