Talk:Birmingham

Dawn Baxendale photo request

Your city's CEO has just signed up for a new job with Christchurch City Council, and the level of her salary is causing an enormous community discussion. Notability is beyond question. I'd write a bio for her if I could illustrate it with a good photo. Could somebody try and take one of her while she's still at Birmingham council? Schwede66 02:59, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion happening in the article for Manchester

A discussion at Manchester#Recent changes to the lead section has expanded to include issues relevant to this page. Interested editors are invited to join the conversation there. Lowercaserho (talk) 23:30, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Birmingham is evidently no longer considered Britain's second city. This "title" went to Manchester at least 10 years ago. The citations provided in the Manchester article prove this, and this is by academic scholarship and not by tabloids as the Birmingham article relies on! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.135.232 (talk) 10:46, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Um, this source and this one are considered “academic scholarship”? The first one is about Glasgow? The second is just an intro page to manchesterhive.com? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

(Martinevans123) Yes, they are academic scholars, I know because I have studied the latter author at length during my undergraduate degree in Geography. Precisely, I am even more qualified than you to make that assertion. 82.4.135.232 (talk) 10:23, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The population statistics are coming from 2001. Why is that, considering the last census was in 2011? I have a particular feeling it is to with the fact that Manchester would be crowned as larger than Birmingham by metropolitan area population over Birmingham! 82.4.135.232 (talk) 10:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Editors, is this your way of forcing through your own agendas and pretending to not have a bias to the general public? If it is, then that is shameful. 82.4.135.232 (talk) 10:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

You can't use population statistics from 2001 and write about a city in 2020?! I mean seriously??? Manchester overtook Birmingham five years ago by metropolitan population. 128.243.2.60 (talk) 14:21, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the answer is to just remove currently sourced material, as you did here. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of the academic status of the author(s), I'm still not sure what an article about Glasgow can tell us about Manchester's "second city" status. Feel free to update the census statistics to 2011. I'm pretty sure that this has not been done just to "force through an agendas and pretend to not have a bias". Warm congratulations on your undergraduate degree in Geography; but I'm afraid that counts for nothing at Wikipedia, where we all have to just rely on sources. Perhaps it would be useful to clarify the relative sizes of Birmingham and Manchester in terms of "city" and "metropolitan area." But it's also not clear to me exactly what the phrase "second city" means. Is this just based on population, or are there other factors, such as economic output involved? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:07, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Snow!

What are those snow averages on the weather box? There’s no way it snows that much in Birmingham. There must be some mistake. NewLoveking2019 (talk) 15:46, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

They seem to be taken from the NOAA, which although a US organisation has records of data from UK aiports. You can see a list of other airport data here. [1]

I agree they don't look right though. I live in Bristol, not far from Cardiff where the NOAA says they had 32 cm of snow a year from 1961-1990. According to this [2] amateur weather station in Bristol, in the 16 years between 2003-2018 it averaged 5 days with measurable snow fall per year, and 3 days with some snow lying on the ground, which would be going some to get even halfway to 30cm. And this period included the major outlier of 2010. Unfortunately the station doesn't provide actual snowfall amount.

One thing is to allow for the fact that the NOAA averages come from 1961-1990 so wouldn't take into account increasing climate change. I think that although this time frame is useful for any historical extremes that occurred during it, to include it in the main table without noting the period from which it comes is misleading - it's 10 years older than the other average data for the airport, and 20 years older than the Edgbaston data. Personally, i'd actually be tempted to ditch any aiport data already covered by the more recent Edgbaston data, and just add the airport data for record temperatures, snowfall and humidity while noting the different sources - others may find that equally misleading, but the airport temperature, sunshine and precipitation data seems extraneous to me when the Edgbaston data is both closer to the city and more recent.

Apart from anything else, searching for this info has highlighted to me how lamentably difficult it can be to find detailed snowfall data for the UK. Granarian (talk) 12:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

My mistake - i've just noticed that the year for the airport data such as snowfall etc. is recorded below the table. Granarian (talk) 12:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Bizarre population vandalism.

I've noticed an anonymous ip keeps popping in to vandalise the population figure of the metro population, making an unexplained change of it from 3.6 to 4.3 million. The most recent was today. I seem to often be the only editor to spot this though, and it has sometimes stood up for a long time. Can other editors of this page be on the lookout for this happening again? G-13114 (talk) 21:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

There's been an anon IP Birmingham vs Manchester slow edit war for several years now, I think. So I had assumed it was part of that. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:12, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes there is definitely a minor edit war between Manchester and Birmingham articles. Apparently according to Wikipedia (but not the office for national stats) Manchester is somehow the 6th largest city in the UK? Even though there are multiple Wiki articles stating data that Manchester is in fact either the second or third largest city, depending on how you measure population and conurbation size? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.146.64.137 (talk) 10:49, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, some sources list Manchester as suspiciously small, possibly because they are separating some of the population into other areas such as the City of Salford. Certes (talk) 15:27, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I think on one hand it is appropriate to segregate the population statistics according, but I'm pretty sure the Birmingham article incorporates Wolverhampton's population into their own. Two can play at that game but there needs to be a more consensual and standardised way of stating the population stats. Metrolink123 (talk) 10:55, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Why we may need to give Birmingham and Manchester semi-protection

Recently, a lot of IPs have been vandalising the Birmingham population statistics as part of an ongoing Birmingham-Manchester rivalry for Britain’s ‘second city’. What these random IPs are doing are removing the referenced fact that Birmingham is sometimes called Britain’s second city, and randomly altering population stats for both the metro and city limits population. This is happening quite frequently, although fortunately editors are reverting these irrational edits. I assume a similar thing is happening on the Manchester page as well. This is problematic because this is a sort of edit war and will make it more difficult for Birmingham to become a featured article and for Manchester to stay as one. A quick solution to this would be put the two pages on semi-protection, at least temporarily. This means that these IPs couldn’t edit the page, and that if they register themselves simply to vandalise either page they will not be able to do this. I understand that this is just people being loyal to their cities and saying one is greater than the other (this is nearly pointless anyway as they are far less important than London), but this has gone too far. Should we make it semi-protected? Or should we just keep an eye out for them and revert them when they vandalise either page? InterstellarGamer12321 (talk) 18:47, January 6 2021 (UTC)

Just a note that I may have a conflict of interest as I have lived in Birmingham but not Manchester. I would like to see viewpoints from the other side and neutral viewpoints too, of course. InterstellarGamer12321 (talk) 19:08, January 6 2021 (UTC)

Both Manchester and Birmingham "less important than London"?? lol. I have no COI as I have never lived in any of them. But yes, protection might be justified. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

InterstellarGamer12321 The reason the phrase about Birmingham being Britain's second city keeps getting removed is because a) It is not a definitive fact, legal entity or point of information. b) It is an opinion, which in itself is disputed by recent public polling which suggests that the British public beleive that Manchester is now Britain's second city. c) The sheer fact that the aforementioned "opinions" are disputed highlights that this phrase is far too controversial to be included in the opening paragraph. More discussion is needed with editors. RfC possibly needed. Metrolink123 (talk) 11:51, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah yes, those were the days.... And we also have an entire article at Second city of the United Kingdom. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:10, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

In that reference, A spokesperson for BMG stated: "Although Birmingham is the most populous UK city outside of London, and a larger contributer [sic] to national GDP, our polling shows that most Britons consider Manchester to be nation's second city. It goes on to clarify that "most Britons" means 38%. Certes (talk) 12:15, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think we should be using these polls as a guideline for ‘second city’ because, as you said, only 38% of Britons actually voted. This means that the vast majority of the population’s opinion has not been recorded and their could be a bias where many more people responded from one city than from the other or have been to or worked in one city but not the other. We should use statistics and discussion rather than polls for deciding anything, at least in this case. InterstellarGamer12321 (talk) 16:11, January 7 2021 (UTC)

BMG Research interviewed a representative sample of 1,520 UK adults, of whom 38% (about 578) mentioned Manchester. They didn't conduct the 25 million interviews needed to reach 38% of all Britons! Certes (talk) 16:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Certes If you look at the Manchester article opening paragraph, four citations have provided a counter judgement to that of Birmingham's prerogative. If you wish to include that phrase for Birmingham, then I think editors are more than within their right to use the same phrase regarding Manchester in the Manchester article (with adequate citations). That however will be confusing and counterproductive and lead to an all right edit war. The best solution is for both Manchester and Birmingham articles to exclude such phrases from the opening paragraph and keep the discussion elsewhere in the article. As I said previously, the "second city" aspect is not fact or legal entity, but only an opinion. Should opinions genuinely be expressed in an opening paragraph? Especially disputed and controversial opinions? Metrolink123 (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I think there are two possible solutions to this:

1) Remove the ‘second city’ line from both Birmingham and Manchester and either put it somewhere else in these articles (economy or culture would be best) or delete it completely. Semi-protection being needed is unlikely.

2) Keep them where they currently are (maybe include that Birmingham has a claim to second city on the Manchester article and vice versa) and do not move or delete them. Semi-protection will be needed to protect against the IPs.

We will probably need a discussion and eventually a consensus on both where the ‘second city’ fact will be in each article and also where semi-protection will be required. InterstellarGamer12321 (talk) 16:04, January 7 2021 (UTC)

This doesn't change the fact that Birmingham has been commonly referred to as Britain's second city for well over a century, including in academic sources such as this for example. In wikipedia, academic sources trump dubious opinion polls. That Birmingham is refered to as the second city is one of the most commonly stated facts about Birmingham. G-13114 (talk) 18:42, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

User talk:G-13114 I agree than certainly before Manchester's economic boom Birmingham was Britain's second city, but now as you say, academics and opinion polling suggests otherwise. This must be reflected in both articles. There is plenty of recent academic literature showing that Manchester is now Britain's second city. Check out the reference.

References

Split for two articles for Birmingham? City and Birmingham?

I think from reading up on some more on Birmingham. I have always wondered. Why is there no second article to cover the entire city of Birmingham and only this to cover Birmingham itself? Birmingham has a lot of notable areas like Small Heath, Perry Barr, Erdington, Sutton Coldfield, Handsworth, Kings Heath, Bournville, Moseley and Quinton. These areas are of significant interest but don't get much mention in this article. I propose a split for both articles one that covers Birmingham (itself) and one for the wider (City of Birmingham). A similar thing exists for cities like City of Bradford, City of Leeds, City of Wakefield, City of Salford, City of Preston and City of Carlisle. I think a separate article for the wider city would be referenced enough and given Sutton was in Warwickshire and separate until 1974 and has a town and parish council. I think it constitute a separate article for both the city and Birmingham. I also proposed one for Wolverhampton and the wider city. DragonofBatley (talk) 16:29, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose How would you separate the definition of 'Birmingham' from the 'City of Birmingham'? Most of the places you quote have been included in Birmingham for over a century. The other examoles you quote have substantial rural areas outside the urban core, so they aren't really comparable. G-13114 (talk) 19:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Not Sutton Coldfield...that was Warwickshire until 1974 and was only then made a part of Birmingham plus it has its own parish and town council. It might still be part of Birmingham but it was its own parish originally prior to Birmingham and has nearly 100k people living in the town and goes by royal town so I think that helps it in good stead DragonofBatley (talk) 19:53, 7 January 2022 (UTC)