Merge Southwest and Rocky Mountains?

[Scott5114]

You might have noticed that a week or so ago we moved the West Texas threads from the Southwest board to the Mid-South. This was done because of ambiguities as to what constituted "West" Texas, and the general neatness of having one state's threads all in one place.

However, this leaves the Southwest board mighty thin. Even before the West Texas threads were moved, the Southwest board is the most lightly trafficked. Therefore, the mods have agreed it might be a decent idea to merge that section with the "Rocky Mountains" board (which is the next-most-lightly trafficked board, and happily, contiguous with the SW board), forming a new board called "Mountain West" or "Interior West", covering nearly the entire Mountain Time Zone. Before we did that, though, we wanted to check with the users to make sure that you would be happy with the results. Thus, the poll. It will end next Friday, so register your opinion before then.

One unresolved question that cropped up is what to do with Idaho. It could either stay split, be moved entirely into Mountain West, or be moved entirely into Northwest (which is the third-least-trafficked). The NW option is attractive because it might balance out the traffic between the boards a bit (i.e. make NW a slight bit more busy), but we'd like feedback on whether categorizing ID with WA and OR makes sense, as opposed to placing it with the rest of its neighbors.

If you have comments other than your yes/no vote, feel free to post them below. As always, we will take all user feedback seriously before making any final decision. Thanks!

[corco]

As an Idaho native, we generally consider ourselves as part of the northwest- at least in the western part of the state. Pocatello probably isn't "northwest," but not everything is going to fit perfectly. But definitely people from Boise or Coeur d'Alene if asked to associate with a region of the country would most likely say "northwest." Somebody from Salmon would probably consider themselves northwest (as people in Missoula do), but that changes as you move south.  The largely Mormon southeast associates much more closely with Salt Lake than Boise (Twin Falls is about the divider line- Twin Fallsians associate about 50/50 with Boise/Salt Lake, shifting towards Boise as Boise grows), and Salt Lake definitely isn't northwest.

That said, I'm definitely in favor of keeping the whole state in one forum though, even if the title doesn't fit the whole state perfectly.  As Boise becomes more important it's starting to become more important to southeast Idahoans and that's a change that's visible even over the last ten years.

It is interesting to note though that it's a one-way relationship. Most of Idaho's population associates itself with Oregon and Washington, but if you asked an Oregonian or Washingtonian if Idaho was part of the northwest, they'd almost always say "hell no."

Fun fact that I bet many of you non-westerners would have never guessed: the city of Boise (205,671) is now bigger than the city of Salt Lake City. The Wasatch Front is a lot bigger than the Treasure Valley, but Boise proper is bigger than Salt Lake proper (186,440).

[Stephane Dumas]

Hard to said. Skyscraperpage organized the threads by the following http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22
Midwest
Moutain West
Northeast
Pacific West
Southeast
Southwest
Texas & Southcentral

They classifield Texas in a separate section.  As for West and East Texas, in my mind, the natural border, would be I-35 or the Balcones Escarpment.

[Takumi]

I agree, they should merge.

[rschen7754]

I agree that Idaho should be moved to the Northwest.

[J N Winkler]

I support the proposal, and would keep Idaho with the intermountain West on the basis that (a) it is in the Mountain time zone and (b), unlike the other states covered in the Northwest board, it is landlocked.  I tend to regard Idaho's large Mormon population share and historical north/south split as additional arguments for keeping it in the Intermountain board (as well as justifications for Oregonians and Washingtonians to say "Hell no" to the proposition that Idaho is a Northwestern state).

[Alps]

So far, looks like we're all in agreement on merging. Maybe we should set up a second poll for the fate of Idaho?

[The High Plains Traveler]

I agree with the proposal. Trouble is with any division, someone will have a posting that straddles a topic boundary. That is a real possibility with pairing far west Texas (you're splitting a SMSA, El Paso-Las Cruces, here)  or even the panhandle with far east Texas. As far as Idaho, I tend to think of them as more northwest but again the dividing line is more toward Boise than the area adjoining Utah. If we don't want to split a state then keep it with the other Mountain States.

[twinsfan87]

I tend to associate Idaho with the Northwest, and my vote would be to put Idaho in with the Northwest even though it doesn't border the ocean.

[Duke87]

My first thought would have been to put Arizona and New Mexico in with California and Nevada (and keep the name "Southwest"), but I guess this also works.

Idaho definitely belongs with "Northwest".

[oscar]

I support the proposal, and would keep Idaho with the intermountain West on the basis that (a) it is in the Mountain time zone and (b), unlike the other states covered in the Northwest board, it is landlocked.

The northern Idaho panhandle is in the Pacific time zone, but the state capital and most of Idaho's area and population is on Mountain time.

The time zone boundary is a natural place to split up Idaho, if it stays split.  Then again, you also have a time zone boundary between the El Paso area and the rest of Texas, but that wasn't enough to keep Texas split between two boards. 

[Stephane Dumas]

My first thought would have been to put Arizona and New Mexico in with California and Nevada (and keep the name "Southwest"), but I guess this also works.

Idaho definitely belongs with "Northwest".

I like the idea of having "Southwest" with California, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona.

The more I think, maybe Texas could have its own section.

[CL]

Fun fact that I bet many of you non-westerners would have never guessed: the city of Boise (205,671) is now bigger than the city of Salt Lake City. The Wasatch Front is a lot bigger than the Treasure Valley, but Boise proper is bigger than Salt Lake proper (186,440).

Oh, we all know city proper population counts for very little. Better to compare urban area populations, as you say–2.2 million versus 616,000. 

Anyway, merging is a wonderful idea. Put Idaho in Northwest for the sake of bolstering posting activity for that board.

[Scott5114]

When the board first started and the categories were vastly different than they are now, Texas did have its own board. As I recall it didn't work out too terribly well.

I have considered the idea of merging the Southwest with Pacific SW, but the Pacific Southwest board is one of the more trafficked–it has had 213 threads posted to it, compared to Southwest's 47. (Most of those threads concern California .) It would provide more balance to merge Southwest with the Rockies, since that board only has 60 topics, leading to a merged total of 107 (not counting any Idaho moves that might happen), which is about the volume of the Mid-Atlantic board.

Northwest, meanwhile, only has 78 topics. Moving all of Idaho to Northwest would hopefully balance the West and the Northwest at around 90 or so.

[Henry]

I'm all for it too!

[corco]

The time zone boundary is a natural place to split up Idaho, if it stays split.  Then again, you also have a time zone boundary between the El Paso area and the rest of Texas, but that wasn't enough to keep Texas split between two boards.

One argument I would have against splitting Idaho that way is that from a roads perspective, I would suspect that a big chunk of the conversation about road projects in Idaho moving forward is going to have to do with US-95 and connecting northern and southern Idaho. Culturally, north-south is unquestionably the place to split it, but on a road forum I think that will make things confusing. The lack of a good north-south corridor is the gaping hole in the Idaho highway system and there are ongoing, actual conversations to fix it.

If Idaho has to remain split into two boards, which I'm against, I'd recommend splitting east-west at US-93. That works culturally too- western Idaho associates with the northwest (although northern Idaho more with Seattle/Spokane and southwestern Idaho more with Portland and even San Francisco to a degree), while southeastern Idaho associates with Salt Lake.

[oscar]

I like the idea of having "Southwest" with California, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona.

Don't forget Hawaii, which is drowned out by California discussions in "Pacific Southwest" but it still has to go *somewhere*.

[Grzrd]

You might have noticed that a week or so ago we moved the West Texas threads from the Southwest board to the Mid-South. This was done because of ambiguities as to what constituted "West" Texas, and the general neatness of having one state's threads all in one place.

Straying from the question in the poll but directly related to the Mid-South board and the notion of "the general neatness of having one state's threads all in one place", I have one suggestion and one comment:

Suggestion: Drop "Western Tennessee" from the Mid-South board.  The entire state of "Tennessee" is in the Southeast board and fits neatly to the rest of the Southeast in a geographic sense by fitting neatly to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.  I don't see any need for "Western Tennessee" on the Mid-South board.

Comment: OTOH splitting Louisiana into SE Louisiana on the Southeast board and Western Louisiana on the Mid-South board can be justified to me because both the I-49 North and I-69 projects run through NW Louisiana and connect to Arkansas and/or Texas; I am personally biased because I follow those two projects and it makes sense to me to have developments on those two projects in those three states to be in one board (particularly since Texas is basically calling the shots for Louisiana on I-69 SIU 16).  Similarly, Greater New Orleans is closely linked to Mississippi on the Southeast board.  It's not an exact science, but splitting Louisiana seems to make sense.

Oops, a second comment: At the risk of being overly anal, I note that "eastern West Virginia" is in the Mid-Atlantic board and "central West Virginia" is in the Ohio Valley board.  Should "central" be replaced with "western" on the Ohio Valley board?

[hbelkins]

I think there can be any number of logical arguments made for a number of state placements. Take my state, for instance. I always thought of Kentucky as being in the Southeast, probably because of the Southeastern Conference. Culturally Kentucky seems to have a hard time making up its mind whether it's a southern/southeastern state or a midwestern state. And geographically, most of Kentucky drains into the Ohio River so the Ohio Valley designation seems to work. However, most of Tennessee drains into the Ohio River as well so logically it would fit in the Ohio Valley category as well.

While I have always tended to think of Kentucky as being a southeastern state, I do not think the same for North Carolina, despite it being farther south and east than Kentucky. To me, North Carolina is an eastern seaboard (Mid-Atlantic) state.

I tend to think of Idaho as being a northwestern state so it would probably fit there.

[thenetwork]

I'd like to see the entire state of Ohio in the Midwest -- Only because there is a lot of travel between the Northern & Southern halves of Ohio as currently defined in the forum.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

I would go from 11 regions down to 7 regions (concerning the U.S.)

[Alps]

Rather than let this thread explode - if you have more ideas for other boards, let the admins know!

[Brian556]

I don't think any states should be divided between boards.

[6a]

Trouble is with any division, someone will have a posting that straddles a topic boundary.

There is a northern/southern Ohio split that has been touched on by others in this thread.  Columbus is right in the middle, and pretty much everyone includes Columbus-based threads in the northern forum without discussion.  It just "seems" right.  In this case, sticking Idaho in the NW seems right along with the actual topic of this thread.

[agentsteel53]

I'd never noticed we had a split of Ohio, of WV, of Penna. 

should we re-district everything anew?  I'd even make California its own board given its popularity.