Request for California Central Coast subforum

[MtnSurfer]

Ok,

In discussing this with a CA forum admin it was recommended that I start a new thread including the cities and associated numbers I have looked up below.

A problem occurs when an admin search is performed on the Central Coast . Not much will be found because this really is the umbrella area for many larger, mid and smaller sized cities within this Central Coast region. If someone is unfamiliar with this region of California they will never know what to look for and that these threads are apart of the same area.

So I think the best way to demonstrate the activity is with the numbers along with the corresponding city/area name. I used the advanced CD search for these in the title only of the threads. This really tells the story of the Central Coast better.

Santa Cruz 143
Santa Barbara 142
Monterey 116
San Luis Obispo 74
Carmel 54
Santa Maria 33
Central Coast 30
Paso Robles 21
Atascadero 19
Lompoc 18
Salinas 14
Goleta 14
Santa Margarita 13
Morro Bay 10
Pismo 10
Aptos 10
Watsonville 8
Big Sur 7
Orcutt 7
Vandenberg 7
Scotts Valley 6
Carpinteria 6
Los Osos 5
Solvang 4
King City 3
-------------------------
Total Thread Count: 774

If one uses these cities for searches they will find that there are many more threads represented by this wider area.

Notice both the larger cities and then all of the mid size and smaller cities represented within this region. Apart they get lost in the larger state forum. But together they fit right into this larger geographic area known as the Central Coast.

Thanks for your consideration.

Derek

[slo1318]

Mods, any answers.....yes, no maybe?

[Administrator]

Thank you for you suggestion. The biggest issue is that it's a large area. Since we added the sub-forum for the Inland Empire, our preference has been to create sub-forums for smaller areas. I will take a closer look, though.

[MtnSurfer]

Thank you,

These could easily be broken down into their individual counties (Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara). I'm not quite sure what happened in the case of the Inland Empire forum. But I can understand if it is easier to maintain smaller areas from an admin perspective.

Another consideration is that certain areas like the Central Coast, while large in size geographically, are actually smaller in size in terms of population than places like the Inland Empire (almost 4x as large). So there would be less overall threads to maintain. Because CA is such a large state there are certain parts which have more open, undeveloped land. Hence these parts are quite different from Southern Cal. which is has a higher % of wall to wall people and concrete than just about anywhere else in the nation.

I also wasn't sure if there was a thread threshold for a county/area sub forum. But the numbers for the Central Coast seemed like a good size for a logical grouping.

Thanks again for your consideration,

Derek

[kettlepot]

It will be interesting to see what kind of a decision the Administrator makes about this. What I've noticed as a pattern, is that when subforums are created that aren't about specific cities, most often they are subareas of a very large metropolitan area: Places like Orange County, the Inland Empire, and now Ventura County for Los Angeles, or Westchester County or Long Island for New York City, or the Chicago Suburbs, and Northwest Indiana subforums for Chicago, and the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of DC. The only non-city focused subforum that I can recall off hand that doesn't follow this rule is the Northeastern Pennsylvania forum for Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and the Poconos. If a Central Coast forum is created, that will be an interesting break from standard practice. Otherwise, my guess is that the next California subforum the Administrator will add will be for Fresno, or some other city from the San Joaquin Valley.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I was the cheer-leader for the creation of the Inland Empire subforum, but I guess the City-Data powers-that-be have developed concerns about whether it has met expectations.

[MtnSurfer]

While I don't always understand the thought processes behind creating some areas, vs. cities vs. counties they all exist in CD. But rather than look at old practices and rules (which may be changing) why not look at what makes sense for the States in question? To me it comes back to a simple principle. How much interest is there state wide for questions regarding certain areas and what are the logical, geographic boundaries of those areas?

If one ignores the more spread out regions of the states in favor of more simple city groupings then much of CA goes unrepresented/undone. However these areas still have many threads as I have demonstrated which get lost in the latest political or why Cali sucks garbage threads.

I'm not sure why it would matter if it's a region vs. county or city. I think the bulk of the work is probably gathering up old threads and then adding them to the new forum. That is part of the reason I created that list above to help whoever does it with a list of the cities to search for. This should make it easier. But at this point I wouldn't care if the old threads were left out. I would just like see the needed sub forums created as much of the state is still unrepresented.

And yes, Frenso County deserves it's own sub forum as well as it has many threads and more people than Ventura County that's for sure.

Derek

[californio sur]

I support and urge the creation of a Central Coast subforum.

[phddoc]

I do as well. I am concentrating a relocation search in this area and it would be helpful to have a central place to go for information.

Thanks!

[kettlepot]

I'm reviving this thread because I did a thread count for the city of San Luis Obispo and its surrounding cities.

Specifically I counted threads for these cities:

San Luis Obispo (SLO)
Atascadero
Paso Robles
Morro Bay
Avila Beach
Arroyo Grande
Pismo Beach
Los Osos
Oceano
Grover Beach
Nipomo
Templeton
Cayucos
Cambria

These cities stretch for about 45 miles up and down the 101 in San Luis Obispo County or are nearby SLO beach towns.

Many of the thread titles included several of these cities at once as the poster was trying to choose between them. When I found these I endeavored NOT to double count. I also found about 30 threads which compared one of the above cities to a city outside the area such as SLO v Santa Cruz. I excluded these from the total completely.

The total number of threads I counted were 303. That's a pretty hefty number if you believe it is appropriate to include all of these cities under one grouping. Hearst Castle could add 3 more. At the current time, the Monterrey County Forum has 258 threads.

Just for curiosity, I also searched for Santa Maria threads (qty 50) but that is just over the county line in Santa Barbara and it seemed appropriate to exclude it on that basis.

Just an update for those who are interested.

[the city]

I think Santa Cruz County posts could go into the San Jose or Monterey County sub forum.

Perhaps make a sub forum for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County and call it the Central Coast much like the Inland Empire Forum contains Riverside and San Bernardino County.