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Talk:Edinburgh

Removed from the subject page: Edinburgh's building layout is a little unusual compared to a lot of cities, this is most likely due to the fact that it has grown slowly for centuries. The difference is that in standard human geography the structure of cities is based on concentrict circles, with a central financial/retail district, an outer industrial district and a middle residential district with out of town shopping malls located outwith the city limits (at least to start with). Edinburgh, however, is much better described as a large number of villages and towns that have slowly merged and left a pattern of greens, high streets and residential areas sprawlled throughout the city, with the little industry that Edinburgh has being mostly located in Leith (and more recently South Queensferry). Some areas were originally developed solely as residential area, such as Craigmillar with it's tower blocks and terraced housing, however without the large out of town shopping parks and the lack of large roads or mass transit (other than buses) these areas have degenerated into slums and are now being redeveloped along the lines of the rest of the city.

This is surreally wrong (except for Craigmillar being a slum). Apart from the oddity of having a couple of mountains within its limits, Ediburgh is very usual of its type. Almost an archetype.

Where does the idea come from that, as is suggested here, the zoned layout of post-world-war-II US towns is "standard human geography"?

Look at london... it has a central financial and retail district surrounded by housing (and in London's case miles and miles of surburbia ouside of _that_ to support the large business district in the center, though in London's case most of the Industrial areas are blobs in the suburbia or (historically) along the river Thames. How about Paris? Central business and retail district (granted a lot of tourist industry too) surrouned by residential with industrial area beyond that (those more in the center are slowly shifting outwards... Newcastle? central business and retail surrounded by residential (some old industrial stil extant, but slowly moving outwards) with more industry at the mouth of the Tyne that is slowly being replaced by tourist attractions as industry moves out of town... Ages of London, Newcastle and Paris... prolly getting on for as old as Edinburgh. Tokyo is an example that bucks the trend with light industry and residential being relatively mixed but it still has a distinctly retail, business and financial center... St. Andrews; mixed center of retail and residential with industry further out (though the majority of housing is outwith the center but nearer than the industry stuff... and your counter examples would be??

<:@) - I'm happy to accept proof to the opposite and it may simply be that bigger cities tend to conform more to the "post-world-war-II US" setup and this is less true of smaller towns, but then again Edinburgh is a city (though small with only about 450,000 inhabitants) so surely it should conform in the same was as London, Paris, Newcastle...

I must say though that your description is, though complimentary to mine (since it only really describes the center of town), much better written, I'm much better at the delivery of content and the minor corrections than editting :) - *<:@)

Subjectivity of Pronunciation

I suspect the pronunciation is just going to keep getting changed, because everyone has different accents. Should it perhaps just be removed? I mean, I have a Scottish accent, but it's fairly angicised (long story), so I pronounce it edin-buh-rah, as do a lot of people here. Some Americans would pronounce it edin-burh, and Renata suggests edden-breh. It's wholly subjective... opinions? -- Taras

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