Talk:Mill Valley, California

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Removed the following because no citation was given and because its pretty ambiguous. Highest amount of plants in the ground? Highest number of arrests?

Mill Valley has the highest amount of marijuana per capita in California due to the drug trade from Richmond (via the Richmond- San Rafael Bridge)[citation needed].

--Xyrrus 20:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Freemasonry links

I removed two external links:

http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/
http://mill-valley.freemasonry.biz/history/tb-minutes-index.htm

The first is a barely plausible addition to the article; the second was described as a 'Centennial history' which is simply dishonest. (The centennial described is of the lodge, not of the city that's the subject of the article.) --Bpmullins 09:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


I removed the following from the "Demographics" section (it was already mentioned in the opening paragraph)

"In 2005, Mill Valley was rated among the top 10 cities to live by the Money Magazine."

While I am proud to live here as much as the next person, I think mentioning this once in the opening paragraph is quite enough...no need being over-zealous :-) Besides, I personally question the CNN/Money methodology of that study....we were #10 in 2005, but we seemed to have dropped off their radar altogether in their 2006 study....what exactly changed here? --Squididdily 21:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vital info

This needs a huge amount of development. Mill Valley is not a static artist's haven, as conveyed by this article that dwells far too much on art that has been created in or influenced by Mill Valley. I was born and raised in Mill Valley, and now go to school in Oregon, but visit frequently. The town is undergoing rapid gentrification and immeasurable social turnover. I tried to address this, but it was deemed POV and removed. How can we address this issue in a way that is neutral? |-<SiMoN>-| 04:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I removed the following text which I presume you are referring to: "However, over the years the authenticity of this "alternative" community has decayed, and its arts have been relegated to expensive galleries and annual film festivals. Deterministically, this could be viewed as the direct consequence of the gentrification factor mentioned above." I agree with you that Mill Valley is not a static community and that there have been significant demographic shifts in the city over the past 25 years (as there have across much of Marin county), but I think that the text as written was definitely POV. We need to make sure to source any information that we add regarding changes in Mill Valley. Perhaps we can find some articles or other references to this in the IJ or other source. I remember there have been several cases of the community resisting the introduction of chain stores like In and Out Burger and Starbucks which perhaps can be used? I'm interested in helping along this vein, but let's make sure to find appropriate references. Cuffeparade 05:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Point taken, and I agree. Upon rereading my brief addition to the Art section, I realize that what wrote needs substantial evidence, rather than a few broad statements. |-<SiMoN>-| 06:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice work trimming some stuff from the intro section and moving it to a more suitable space. I've always been against famous residents in the opening paragraphs. Cuffeparade 11:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suburban Gentrification

I'd say that this is definitely a step in the right direction to addressing the subject of Mill Valley's changing demographics over the years. I still think that there are some issues to work on for this section, and on a more general level, I think that it is important that this section deal dispassionately with the subject. I don't think that it would be appropriate for WP to be casting an opinion on whether the 'gentrification' (and I'm not entirely certain that the term applies, exactly, in MV's case) is a good or bad thing. What I'd rather see are hard figures on the average price of a house or the average household income over the years to illustrate the change. I don't know about the use of the use of www.sustainablemillvalley.org as a reference, and I've been reviewing the terms of WP:ATT which I think may qualify it as a questionable source. Again I think we should approach this dispassionately and groups like SMV clearly have an agenda. Anyways, I'm not sure that the page you linked to deals directly with the subject, which was the trend of diminishing affordable housing. I did find an interesting article from the IJ about affordable housing and median house prices, maybe we can find a way to work that in. Finally, I think we need some more attribution in the first part of this section. I'm not so sure that the demographic change in Mill Valley can be reduced to the dotcom boom. I would say that it is certainly a factor, but I've always had the sense that Mill Valley's influx of rich residents came from a lot of corporate execs and bankers, as well as plenty of independently wealthy people and doctors. I don't have any sourcing on that, but the point is we need to be able to attribute our claims. Cuffeparade 11:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Did a bit more digging around and found a few articles that might be relevant, here and here Cuffeparade 12:01, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this section still needs much work. I agree that the term "suburban gentrification", while applicable in its literal meaning, has many negative connotations and may not be the best term to describe the change; also, some of my sources are a bit shaky, although it is hard to find anything even somewhat reliable. Mainly, I was attempting to just get this concept onto the page, so that it can be built upon. I feel that a Mill Valley page is not complete or accurate without addressing the issue, but I agree with you that we must maintain objectivity. Hopefully, it will be edited, expanded, and polished from here on out. |-<SiMoN>-| 22:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

In the spirit of such polishing, I have changed some of the language in the section, as well as adding some new sources. As I've said above, I don't think that you can connect the affluence in Mill Valley over the last 20 or so years primarily with the dot com boom. If you can provide some sources to support that influence, then I'd be happy to include it (and indeed, I can think of one or two influential internet pioneers who do in fact live in MV, but they alone do not constitute a primary role in explaining the wealth of MV). I also trimmed a bit of the language in the last part of the section on the Fireside affordable housing project as well as replacing your source with an IJ article, which I think is more in line with WP:ATT guidelines. What do you think? Cuffeparade 11:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mill Valley History edits

Shouldn't we delve further than Mr. John Reed? Perhaps into Mill Valley's indigenous peoples (Miwok, Ohlone), early "discoverers", etc? How about all of us collaborating, perhaps with Barry Spitzer's history? What do you think? We certainly need more... ...o0O [GUTH3] O0o... 04:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

There is definitely a precedent for including information on the history of native people in city articles, so by all means go ahead and include some. If you are sourcing from a published history, I'd make sure to cite it at the bottom of the article with all the pertinent information. I'm interested to learn more about who the early (European, I presume?) discoverers you mention were, and who they represented. Cuffeparade 05:10, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sewage Spill

--Billymac00 (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me, but is this a truly significant instance of 'Mill Valley in the news'? I mean I agree that issues of contamination in the SF Bay are of concern to people who live in the area, not least since the recent oil spill, but this seems like it is setting the bar pretty low for a 'Mill Valley in the news' kind of reference. Perhaps if there were references to the spills in more than regional news outlets I might be more swayed to support it. There needs to be some kind of balance between finding instances where the city of Mill Valley is named in or the subject of articles in the SF Chronicle or Marin IJ, and when it is actually a encyclopedically significant event that is worthy of inclusion in the WP article. Just my thoughts. Cuffeparade (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese fleets

The article says. "Chinese fleets are known to have visited the area and traded with the locals as early as 1200."

This is, of course, nonsense. 24.136.6.69 (talk) 12:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I, too, thought it looked dubious. Removed. Stepheng3 (talk) 18:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)