Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Royal Leamington Spa Built-up area

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Missvain (talk) 20:34, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Leamington Spa Built-up area

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

Royal Leamington Spa Built-up area (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Non-notable auto-generated statistical area with zero in-depth coverage. Fails WP:GEOLAND and WP:GNG. The name is also auto-generated and is not used by other sources. The fact the towns of Warwick and Leamington Spa are almost contiguous is already noted in both articles. --Pontificalibus 15:32, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:36, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 16:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge with Leamington Spa since the BUA has the same name as the town. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is a well-defined and official area and is the basis for statistics and analysis which we will want to report. It's not the same as Royal Leamington Spa as it includes the substantial county town of Warwick which has a strong and separate identity too. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It may well be these things but it hasn't received in-depth coverage outside of the organization that created it, or indeed in-depth coverage at all. The Office for National Statistics creates all sorts of categorisations and constructs such as Self-employed tradespeople in multicultural metro suburbs, but we don't have to have an article on all the ones that fail WP:GNG. Being auto-generated by a government stats agency doesn't give something a WP:N pass.----Pontificalibus 18:27, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The point is that they do not have this joint identity. You are in fact making this point by arguing that their identities are "strong and separate". Uncle G (talk) 18:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • They have both a separate and conjoint identity. This is quite normal with geography in which areas are nested and combined to form larger areas which all have their specific definitions and names. Consider, for example, that I am writing this in West Ealing which is part of the London Borough of Ealing which is part of West London which is part of Greater London which is part of the Greater London Built-up Area. And that's not all as there's London and Middlesex too. Now, notice that these are all blue links for separate pages. This is not a problem as we have a specific policy, WP:NOTPAPER, which tells that that we can take as many pages as we like to detail the complexity and confusion of the real world. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:32, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • You again make the case that they do not, as all that you can point to is nesting, nothing to do with the concept at hand, rather than to anything documenting this machine-generated concept in use by anyone other than its creators, and then argue that because documented and widely used geographical concepts have articles, this one must too, despite a complete dearth of any geographers, cartographers, or anyone else other than its creators actually employing it and our Project:no original research policy. Uncle G (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • The concept is neither new nor original. As noted below, The Conurbations of Great Britain identified this conurbation over 50 years ago. This latest analysis naturally records and reports its current extent using the latest technology and techniques. Insofar as it is highly expert, official and intended for long-term analysis, we should naturally include it. As the details are available under an open licence, it's a good fit with our project and philosophy. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:36, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are editors just going round intentionally one by one nomination after nomination of articles for deletion? If these are being deleted then I think the same should go for the Leeds City Region and Leeds-Bradford Urban area articles. Already got the West Yorkshire Urban Area and if that can stay then why you going to keep nominating articles? Again I think editors rather delete the leave you did it with Grimsby Lincoln Bristol and others. I'll nominate the articles mentioned — Preceding unsigned comment added by RailwayJG (talk • contribs) 2021-04-19T18:06:26 (UTC)
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. EpicPupper 18:15, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Join me here as well Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Merge or deletion of the Sheffield Urban Area and West Yorkshire Urban Area — Preceding unsigned comment added by RailwayJG (talk • contribs) 2021-04-19T18:17:35 (UTC)
  • Merge with Warwick district - The name of this built-up area is auto-generated by the ONS and is misleading. Leamington Spa may be larger but the whole county is named for Warwick. The whole conurbation is governed by the Warwick district where the conurbation forms the bulk of the population. I think that would be a more appropriate place for a merger than Leamington Spa or Warwick. Eopsid (talk) 18:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I came across this from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#New articles on built-up areas, which in turn I discovered from Alfreton/South Normanton Built-up area (AfD discussion). I wondered for quite a while what to do. It seems that the U.K. has its very own version of the Wikipedia:Reliability of GNIS data problem: a bunch of articles created from a statistical database. There are a whole bunch of these "built-up area" articles. In fact that was why this was removed from Proposed Deletion by DGG.

    The U.K. problem is that no human, let alone an actual geographer, created these groupings. They were machine generated, as can be confirmed from the documentation that Pontificalibus posted in the other AFD discussion. There is no actual human expertise involved here. (The doco does make a "Hey look! The computer almost got it right." congratulatory note at one point. ☺)

    A further problem is that these things aren't used by anyone else. I wondered if, genuinely, geographers had classified these three places as a conurbation. We could at least rename and refactor, if that were true. So I went looking. The book on conurbations mentioned in the WikiProject does not state this. I couldn't find anything else. So I thought maybe "urban area", "urban district", or some such. I found exactly one off-hand mention of an "urban unit", in a 1972 report about air pollution (ISBN 9780114101497). The "urban district" generated a lot of false positives for things like local "Urban District Council"s in documentation of local government reorganization in the 1960s

    I even found a professor of geography telling me that this was not the case that these were one unit:

    Other double towns are clearly distinct in primary functions and age of development. Many of these consist of young industrual or resort settlements that have grown up within a short distance of old market towns or ports. Variant types are exemplified by Higham Ferrers and Rushden, Warwick and Leamington Spa, […]

    — Arthur E. Smalles, The Geography of Towns ISBN 9780202366302, page 110

    That is in fact what Conurbations of Great Britain says (on page 257) too, with "ancient centre" and "residential town". These are two towns, often joined with "and" but not considered as one "built-up area". There is no Twin Cities or Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex here.

    This idea here apparently hasn't escaped the confines of the statistical analysis that it was solely invented for, in the ample 8 years that it has had to do so. No-one actually documents things this way. As such, our Project:no original research policy applies against novel ideas that have not gained traction outwith their creators. Delete.

    Uncle G (talk) 18:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    • Page 256 of that book, definitely calls Warwick and Leamington a conurbation. I don't see why you are denying it even exists as a conurbation or one built-up area. It clearly is one. There's no mistaking it. It's even mentioned as one urban area in this Guardian article about walking in the area [1]. And that section on double towns doesn't say they aren't a built-up area either. I don't think its notable enough for an article. But denying it even exists as a built-up area is absurd. Eopsid (talk) 19:11, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Trying to make the claim that denying that this concept is in use outwith its creators is the same as declaring the areas not built-up is a complete straw man. And I cannot find a claim of a Warwick conurbation on page 256. Warwick is on pages 254 and 257, as also listed in the index, where, as above, it is not described as part of a conurbation. Page 254 even tells us that it is "separated from" an actual West Midlands conurbation. What are you talking about? Uncle G (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • And the full quote from that book contradicts what you are trying to say

      [...] such pairs have usually retained their administrative seperateness but whether like or unlike they inevitably count for several purposes as a single group.ISBN 9780202366302, page 110

      Eopsid (talk) 19:17, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • … except that they do not count as this group, and you have no evidence that they do, not least because you won't find anyone outwith its inventors even using this name, let alone this concept. You won't find a "Royal Leamington Spa built-up area". You won't find a concept of a Warwick and Royal Leamington Spa conurbation, either. Indeed, you won't find a two-towns-and-a-parish concept rather than double towns. Geographers simply haven't recognized it and documented it. I've pointed to a professor of geography who says outright that these are double towns, "clearly distinct" from each other, and "separated from" actual conurbations. Where's your geography expert saying otherwise? Because a lifestyle piece in a newspaper about walking trips is not anywhere near the same level of expertise, let alone expert explanation supporting this particular geographic concept.

        The sad thing is that, once again, Wikipedia got a bunch of generated-from-a-database articles promoting a concept that no-one other than its creators use instead of the actual (somewhat woolly, but even that is verifiable) geographic concept of double towns a.k.a town couples (or "Doppelstadt" in the German literature, I believe).

        Uncle G (talk) 20:58, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

        • I dont see how a double town isn't a conurbation or a built-up area, they're not mutually exclusive concepts. That book extract makes no mention of them not being conurbations. Regarding the claim of Warwick and Leamington Spa being a conurbation in that other book, page 256 section Towns near the west midlands conurbation starts with "Three small conurbations and the town of Worcester", then goes on to list the conurbations (and Worcester) with a paragraph on each. A section of which is on Warwick and Leamington. Eopsid (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kichu🐘 Need any help? 01:20, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not a census tract as those are small areas of about 1000 people, used as census "atoms". What we have here is not some arbitrary and tiny subdivision but a huge conurbation. It is a physical reality – like a lake or forest composed of a contiguous extent of buildings. It has been recognised in this way for over 50 years and it now has an official name. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Leamington Spa mentions the conurban's extent and population, so I don't see why we need a separate article for a statistical entity that doesn't appear to be used or referenced in third-party sources. Reywas92Talk 23:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.