Talk:Urban-type settlement

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[moved discussion from User_talk:Mzajac —Michael Z. 16:09, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)]

Hi Michael, I gave it a try, but I have the feeling it's horrible english. Describing an untranslatable keyword in a foreign language - one of my famousfavourite hobbies ;) Please have a look at it to delete the worst mistakes. Thank you. --elya 21:00, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just to let you know—I was going to work on this particular article pretty soon. Let me know if we need to coordinate efforts. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 21:11, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Also, this is what I was going to use to track/unify the articles on subdivisions and entities. Please feel free to edit or make suggestions.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 21:13, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Good work, Elya. I've massaged the text a little. Keep in mind that I don't understand much German or Russian (found the original Посёлок article), so feel free to undo my damage.

Should this be moved to Townlet, with redirects at PGT and P.G.T.? The heading isn't used otherwise, so it seems to me that a simpler name is better.

—Michael Z. 22:35, 2004 Nov 4 (UTC)

*g* not exactly damage... thanks for your massage ;-) - Got to go to work now, I'll tell you my thoughts for the name of the article later. --elya 07:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How 'bout moving it to Urban settlement (because this is actually what it is), and retaining other names as redirects?—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 14:59, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

"Townlet" has the advantage that it doesn't sound as generic. How widely-used is the term? Is it used in academic literature? Is it a reasonable translation of Посолёк or Селище? I guess the specific subject is rarely seen in English, anyway.

Urban settlement is okay with me, but we have to make sure the article remains clearly written as a specific definition so other Wikipedians don't start adding all kinds of material on the general subject of "urban settlement."

I was just thinking that we should have redirects from Posolyok gorodskogo tipa, Posolyok, Selyshche miskoho typu, and Selyshche, of course.  :-) But more seriously, does any English-language literature use the term posolyok? Since this is a specific but not-easily-translated term, it may make sense to use it the way we use dacha or samovar in English. Google finds 5,920 poseloks, 201 posyoloks, 2 posoleks, 147 selysches, and 33 selyshches (and 3,700 townlets, including other contexts).

Since the term is used since Imperial times, and still throughout the CIS (is that accurate?), it makes sense to me to use that as the heading, and redirect from Selyshche for the Ukrainian translation. —Michael Z. 16:45, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

well, I am not sure, if the single Selyshche or Posolyok will do - this would have just the meaning of "village" or "settlement", as I understand it. I was thinking about Urban settlement or Städtische Siedlung (German), but I see the problem with distinction of general "urban settlements"... I would propose to do some more research/investigation work to find out how it is translated "officially", before we create thousands :) of redirects and article-movements. --elya 16:54, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed (although selyshche also sounds like a big selo to me). —Michael Z.

Third attempt to add this due to edit conflicts :)
I do agree that "townlet" does not sound as generic, but, honestly, to me it sounds kind of silly (e.g., "federal subjects, districts, cities, and townlets"—see what I mean?). It would probably be OK to define an "urban settlement" as a "townlet", but the word "townlet" as an actual definition would probably not work as well (and no, I've never seen this term in academic literature—"urban-type settlements" or simply "settlements" are used more often).

As for the translation being reasonable, it is reasonable for "посёлок городского типа" (which is effectively the same as "urban-type settlement"). In Russia, there are also "посёлки сельского типа" ("rural-type settlements"), which can effectively be shortened to "rural settlements" (as opposed to "деревни" and "сёла", which are smaller in size and are usually translated as "villages"), but I am not sure if Ukraine uses this terminology as well.

As for the "official" translation—unfortunately, there is not any. Whatever document you look at, it may use a different notation. Personally, I've never seen "посёлок" referred to as "posyolok"—"village" and "town" are usually (although not necessarily correctly) used instead. "Urban settlement" and "rural settlement" sound about right, but they are not often used by Russian translators because they do not know these terms and are usually stumped themselves when it comes to translating terms that have no apparent equivalent in English and no established term to use.

Finally, I completely agree that if the article is called "Urban settlement", it should be very very clear about what it refers to. Maybe the title of the article should mention Russia, Ukraine, or former USSR somehow to avoid additions on the general subject of "urban settlement", but I am not sure what is the best way to do it.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:17, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

There are rural ones too, in the Ukraine, but my Soviet-Ukrainian 80s-encyclopedia says, there aren't many in the Ukraine, and I can't find the expression once in Google. It would be селище сільського типу (how I love "our" Unicode-Wikipedia ;-)) --elya 17:48, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Update

OK, I finally did some research and here is what I found:

• Russian dictionaries provide "urban-type community", "urban village", "urban-type settlement", and "urban settlement" as the most common translations of "посёлок городского типа". None of the dictionaries I reviewed mentioned "townlet" as a possible translation.
• Western dictionaries do not have entries for any of the above terms, except for the US Envirionmental Protection Agency Terminology Reference System, which defines "urban settlement" as "a collection of dwellings located in an urban area" [1]—really generic.
• Most Western dictionaries define "townlet" as a "(very) small town".

Considering all that, it is my intent to move this "Townlet" article to "Urban settlement" by the end of this week. "Townlet" implies town status, which urban settlements do not have. "Urban-type settlement" is a more precise term, but it does not seem to be very common.

If you have comments and/or objections, please post them here.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 15:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

If you want to do the work yourself by moving the material to an "Urban-type settlement", explaining the variants of translations and keep townlet as a redirect, not only I won't object, but I would give you a round of applause. --Irpen 17:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It is my intent to do just that :)—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 17:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Urban-type settlement would be OK as a direct translation. Urban settlement is a too generic term to be occupied with a Russia-specific notion. This "Urban settlement" redirect must be turned into a disambiguation or an article. `'mikka (t)

Can you suggest other meanings that would go to such disambig page? Apart from the above-mentioned "collection of dwellings in an urban area", I was unable to find anything to substantiate a separate article/dab on "urban settlement". My point is, if something global pops-up, we can always move "urban settlement" to "urban-type settlement" to make room for new content unrelated to Russia.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 18:30, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I have already retirected Urban settlement to already existing Urban area. I did some google and see that the article may ge expanded, eg by formal definitions for various countries. `'mikka (t) 22:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I did some additional research as well, and it seems like this approach is indeed the best. I'll move this article to "urban-type settlement" in a couple of days when comments run out. When are you planning on changing the urban settlement redirect into an article/dab?—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 14:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The most straightforward solution would be to use "town" instead of "townlet".

"Town" is defined as "a residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousands". Also, "a town is usually ... smaller than a city but larger than a village.". The definition matches the meaning of "poselok gorodskogo tipa", and it allows for a nice and well-understandable English-Russian matching as "gorod=city", "poselok gorodskogo tipa=town", "selo=village".—This unsigned comment was added by 134.84.5.57 (talk • contribs) .

We cannot use "town" because Russian urban-type settlements are not towns. Their populations are considered urban, but the settlements themselves do not have town status. That's a Russian/CIS perk that cannot be simply ignored. See types of settlements in Russia for more details.

Additionally, the city/town statutes differ from one federal subject to another. So, Primorsk in Kaliningrad Oblast with population of roughly 2,000 is a town, Razumnoye in Belgorod Oblast with population of ~15,000 is an urban-type settlement, and Novaya Usman in Voronezh Oblast with population of over 22,000 is a village. There are other criteria, of course, but this is enough to illustrate that the "smaller than a city but larger than a village" approach does not work.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 21:53, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have moved the article to its new home and copyedited it somewhat. Please be replacing all instances of "townlet" with "urban-type settlement" as you see them, but don't make a point to make a project out of it unless you are really desperate for mundane work which adds little value :). I am planning to expand the Russian Federation and the RSFSR sections some time in the future, and would appreciate any assistance with the rest of the former Soviet republics.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 19:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ukrainian SSR

In the Ukrainian wiki it's stated that "у с.м.т. має бути не менше 2 000 меш." that is "not less than 2,000". Also, "не менше 60% робітників, службовців і чл. їхніх родин", that is 60% of workers and families, which is not the same as 2/3 = 66.7% as it's now stated in the article (originally written by User:Visuelya). MapLover 01:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Benefit?

What's the benefit of being called an urban-type settlement? The article implies that places try to be designated as one. --AW (talk) 07:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The population of the urban-type settlements is categorized as urban. In many cases, rural places with more developed industries are trying to get this status "upgrade" in hopes of obtaining additional subsidies to which certain types of urban localities are entitled. Urban status may also mean additional benefits from the municipal point of view as urban localities have rights to implement a wider spectrum of taxes and have more freedom in handling local issues. The opposite trend, however, is also common—an urban-type settlement may actively lobby for a "downgrade" to rural status in order to get tax breaks or, if its industrial potential is low (and the urban status is mostly retained only historically), to get subsidies to which certain rural localities are entitled. All in all, every case is regarded individually, and it would certainly not be correct to say that all rural localities strive to get urban status (very few of them can meet urban-type settlement requirements anyway).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Is that in the article? It'd be useful --AW (talk) 21:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't source it, unfortunately.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)