Talk:East Palo Alto

Hmm, I'm not sure if East Palo Alto needs a seperate article from Palo Alto. I can understand that the distinction should be made, but are they really different destinations? They may be worlds apart, but it's a little fuzzy travel-wise. Suggestions? For now I'm going to try and clarify this article, but my vote is for merging the two. (WT-en) Majnoona 01:20, 28 Nov 2004 (EST)


 * Just for info... they are different cities in different counties. Do we have any precendent for absorbing small cities into the articles of nearby larger ones?  I guess if one was going to stay in the new big hotel in EPA, one might want to know more about the city (specifically, stay safe and eats)  -- (WT-en) Colin 03:07, 28 Nov 2004 (EST)
 * I realize this discussion is almost fifteen years old, but I agree with Majnoona. This town is not well known, the sole hotel is "on the Palo Alto side of the freeway", and the sparse content in the article can easily be incorporated into Palo Alto. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:56, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I always thought that Palo Alto and East Palo Alto were completely different in their makeup and culture. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 00:02, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I was going to argue against this merge but @Mx. Granger made some good points about EPA not being anything of a destination city or really even having a basic infrastructure to accommodate visitors. Palo Alto and EPA are about as different as night and day but since I really can't imagine how this article could ever evolve into something meaningful on its own, I think merging it makes sense. 🐈⚞ℛogueScholar⚟🗨₨UserTalk 09:38, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * IMO, if they "are about as different as night and day" &mdash; to quote your comment &mdash; I think they should not be merged into one article. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 10:57, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Support merger. Being different from each other is not our criterion for evaluating what is an article. We should be asking "what is most useful for travellers?" There are lots of destinations that have a good side of the tracks and a bad side of the tracks, a leafy residential neighbourhood and a gritty industrial park, a historic heritage district and a modern glass-and-concrete office park. As East Palo Alto would most likely be visited from Palo Alto (or from the Palo Alto see of the freeway), it would be most useful to have the single point of interest listing in that article. Ground Zero (talk) 11:14, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Good point. But if they're so different, we could confuse readers by abruptly switching from one of the wealthiest places in the world to a much more ordinary one (that being East Palo Alto). --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 21:43, 15 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Imagine that instead of "East Palo Alto," it was called "JohnSmithCity." What's in a name? --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 21:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * We'll, it isn't called JohnSmithCity, but that's neither here nor there. EPA isn't a destination on its own. It has one POA, so it is most likely accessed on a day trip from PA, so it is more useful to put the info in one place for the reader. Ground Zero (talk) 21:49, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Then we can merge North Valley into San Fernando Valley? --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 21:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If you want to do that, you'd have to propose doing so at Talk:North Valley so that people interested in commenting would be aware of the proposal. This isn't the place to decide that. Ground Zero (talk) 22:07, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's not my point. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 22:35, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So your point isn't clear, then. Ground Zero (talk) 22:46, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Names are words. Ignore the name and then make a decision. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 00:44, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * And no-one in the 2019 discussion is arguing for a merger on the basis of the names of the cities. I won't repeat the arguments that Granger, RogueScholar and I gave made -- you can read them above. Not one of us has brought up the name issue. I agree with you -- it isn't relevant. So why do you keep coming back to that? Let's discuss the relevant arguments instead. Ground Zero (talk) 00:52, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I was just looking at a map and found that oddly enough, East Palo Alto is located northwest of Palo Alto. I wonder how that happened.
 * Anyway, SelfieCity, you have a point, but what's the alternative? Merge to Menlo Park? Find a way to expand this place, with one "Do" listing and one hotel, into a real article? (Not only that, the hotel is almost in Palo Alto, and on Google Maps it looks like part of the "Do" listing is technically in Menlo Park.) What do you envision as the way forward for this article? —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:13, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Not to over-emphasize race here, but East Palo Alto says that East Palo Alto is 65% Hispanic/Latino. That is vastly different from Palo Alto itself. We can expect that culture will be different as a result. The point is, these are two separate places. All the cities in this area are connected anyway, and that's common knowledge. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 00:17, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * We have lots of destinations that have different ethnic quarters in the same place. We don't split up cities onto ethnic neighbourhoods unless they are large cities. And even then, we split the cities up on geographic factors, not simply on ethnic make-up. (For example, Chinatown in London is part of the Leicester Square article, which includes the West End, Trafalgar Square, and so on. It does not have its own article.) There is still the more important issue that no-one seems likely to go to EPA as a destination on its own, but would visit it from PA for the purpose of seeing its one, single, solitary, lonely, unique point of interest. So let's put that information where it is most useful to travellers: in the PA article. Ground Zero (talk) 02:37, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm aware that Palo Alto and East Palo Alto are very different; I don't think you need to keep making that point. But you haven't answered my question—what do you envision as the way forward for this article? Merging with Palo Alto is not a perfect solution, but so far I haven't seen a better idea. —Granger (talk · contribs) 03:05, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Looking back, I realise that I did make the point in my first comment two days ago that "Being different from each other is not our criterion for evaluating what is an article." SelfieCity, I think it's time you give up on this one. You still haven't found a policy-based reason for opposing this merger, and you are going around in circles.  First going on ad nauseum about the name, and now going back to bring different. Neither is relevant here. Ground Zero (talk) 03:16, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Like all our articles, the solution is expansion, which takes time. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 11:04, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But I can see consensus is against me here, so go ahead and do the page move if you want. --Comment by Selfie City  ( talk  |  contributions ) 11:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The one POI here was imported from the predecessor site 15 years ago, so I think we can assume that expansion is extremely unlikely. If some decides to explore EPA and finds more POIs, the article can be restored easily. Thank you for accepting the consensus. Ground Zero (talk) 11:34, 17 August 2019 (UTC)