Template talk:Greater Sacramento

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I noticed that someone tried to add Douglas County, Nevada and other articles within Nevada into this template. While I think that some of the Nevada portions of Lake Tahoe do fall within a Sacramento metropolitan census area, this template is named "Greater Sacramento", and is not about the Sacramento census area. Lake Tahoe is as far away as, and many parts father than, the San Francisco Bay area. It makes as much sense to add Oakland to this list as Douglas County.

Similarly, the Central Valley was added as a sub-region of Greater Sacramento. Um. No. :-) The Central Valley is a prominent geographic feature that runs from around Bakersfield north, and parts of the Greater Sacramento area and the Central Valley overlap. Referring to it as a "sub-region" implies that all, or at least most, of the Central Valley is contained within the Greater Sacramento area. Definitely a misconception.

So what is the "Greater Sacramento" area? That varies depending on whom you ask. I think that generally most people from the area would use the broadcast areas and distribution range of the major TV and newspaper sources as a rough guideline. That would extend from roughly Vacaville (possibly Fairfield) in the west, to at least Nevada City in the northeast, and Angels Camp or even Sonora in the southeast. Truckee and the California side of Lake Tahoe are more isolated, but still reasonable. Marysville and Yuba City to the north often are associated with the Greater Sacramento area. Stockton is a bit problematic, because it seems to prefer to be separate from Sacramento, but due to the high number of commuters, the overlapping TV and newspaper areas, and close proximity to Sacramento, it is difficult to cleanly separate the two. To put it another way, you can easily discuss Sacramento without mentioning Stockton, but the reverse is not as easy to do. The same is true no matter where you draw the dividing line between Greater Sacramento and any other such area.

So, what do we use as our arbitrary dividing lines? Some overly large area like the census district? County lines? Zip Codes? Telephone area codes? Whatever we use, the name of this template should be updated to reflect that choice. "Greater Sacramento" is very nebulous, and depending on the criteria we use for inclusion and exclusion, it can be misleading. Douglas County, Nevada just doesn't logically belong grouped in "Greater Sacramento". To anyone outside the area, it paints a very misleading picture of what is local to the "greater area".

Any other thoughts? Specific counties probably makes the most sense to me. —Willscrlt ( “Talk” ) 02:40, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sacramento metropolitan area offers lists of counties, cities and towns that are part of the "Greater Sacramento" area for US Census statistical purposes. It still seems somewhat odd that areas around Lake Tahoe would be considered part of "Greater Sacramento"...so maybe there's discussion to be had there.

One thing is certain: places in the State of Nevada should not be listed on this template, and should not have this template listed such articles. If anything, Douglas County would be part of the greater Carson City area, or maybe even the greater Reno area well before being considered part of greater Sacramento. Any reasoning that includes Douglas County and other Nevada towns like Gardnerville as part of "Greater Sacramento" would also have to include Carson City and Reno under the same logic...I'm sorry, but that's just absurd. Thus, I've removed the Sacramento template and category from any articles in the state of Nevada. -- LJ ↗ 21:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seeing that the US Census has Douglas County, Nevada and Gardnerville Rancheros, NV as part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Statistical area. That explains why those keep showing up in this template. While I will never understand that logic, I can accept their listing here with that rationale. However, I've put "(NV)" showing with the links of the template for a bit of clarity for the reader--hopefully that can be a small compromise for now. -- LJ ↗ 03:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, some of the listings in that section are neither cities nor towns, but CDPs (Census Designated Places). I am not sure of a better alternative that doesn't sound forced. Killiondude (talk) 00:23, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]