Proposal to change Sub-Localities of Old San Juan

[Gela]

I went to the San Juan Capital office today to ask some questions about San Juan and how it is divided on the map. I learned how the "Esquina" corner address system works, but one of the most interesting things I learned was that areas within Old San Juan are no longer referred to as the original census data imported them.

In Mapmaker, they are listed as San Francisco, Catedral, Ballajá, Marina, Mercado, and San Cristóbal. These divisions are from the 16th century. (Re:Documento para Revisión - Plan de rehabilitación de zona antigue e histórica del casco de San Juan, Oficina de Planificación y Ordenación Territorial Municipio Autónomo de San Juan)

In the 1840's, the barrios changed to different naming schemes: Ballajá, Santo Domingo, Santa Bárbara, San Juan, San Francisco. (Re: Aníbal Sepúlveda Rivera San Juan, Historia ilustrada de su desarrollo urbano, 1508-1898)

When inquiring with the office today, they told me that the government of San Juan no longer recognizes these barrios. The current barrios are La Perla (north of San Juan), La Puntilla (south of San Juan), Puerta de Tierra (from the west side of Terminal Covadonga to the end of the island to the east), and San Juan, containing the rest of the region within Old San Juan.

I am proposing to change the Sub-Localities of Old San Juan to these updated locality names, however I wanted to put it on here so that it could receive input before such a large change is made. Please comment or add any additional information if you have it, or reply to indicate your acceptance of this change. Thanks!

[Gela]

Analyzing the maps further, it appears as if we don't actually use Sub-Localities, it should be set as Locality. This Proposal would change San Juan as the following:

San Juan District, containing:

Old San Juan, Miramar, Santurce, Isla Verde, Condado, etc. Cities,

Old San Juan city contains La Puntilla, La Perla, Puerta de Tierra, and San Juan localities.

Sub-Localities would be removed.

[Roca Roca]

Gela, I wouldn't su;port your proposal for 3 reasons:

First, (and I will assume when you say "the San Juan Capital office" you mean either the San Juan city hall or the Puerto Rico Capitol building in San Juan) the proposal seems to mean that the rest of the municipality of San Juan outside Old San Juan, that is, places like Caimito Cupey, El Cinco, and even Hato Rey, Barrio Obrero and Condado would get different treatment that the various "sub-localities" of Old San Juan, even though they are in the same city. This can lead to confusion.

Second, even if you were going to apply your proposal to the the entire city (municipality) of San Juan, you then run into a situation where the localities in the other municipalities of Puerto Rico would potentialy be using a different scheme than San Juan. This may or may not lead to confusion depending on how savvy/knowlegable the person is about localities (in the generic sense, not in the Google sense) in Puerto Rico.

Third, and most important in my opinion, it seems to me we shouldn't make proposal decisions based on what "someone told someone" original research information but on documented, secondary source information, such as books, periodical, encyclopedias, newspapers, etc. Reason is, that it is possible that tomorrow (I am exaggerating just to make the point) another Google contributor could come into the same office you went and hear a "oh yeah we still refer to areas of old San Juan by the 16th century names" from a different San Juan government employee. (Quite plausible since SJ is a 16th century city anyway), or someone at the Govt of Puerto Rico level could state that, even if San Juan doesn't recognize such and such names or schemes, it doesn't matter becuase that's a Puerto Rico government matter or, maybe even worse yet, a Federal Govt Census Bureau matter. I am not trying to discourage your good faith effort for going to the place and finding out these things, but I am saying that, at a minimum, when making such decisions we are probably better off using, not stuff someone was told, but stuff that is documented in black and white or in electronic form. Maybe one place to start would be, not the "original census data", but the current 2010 census for San Juan. It should be available online.

My 2 cents.

On Wednesday, March 21, 2012 10:26:14 AM UTC-4, Gela wrote:

[Angela Morley]

The woman that assisted me with the researched worked for the capitol office.

I'm not sure what the divisions for the other parts of the San Juan municipality are, this was only looking at data within books that seem to denote them differently. I will admit though, there was no printed information I found backing up the current system they use, only three maps the capitol made with the delineations they consider valid now. I don't know if that's enough, but perhaps reviewing the most recent census data would be valuable, as you suggested.

The second part of this is to fix the levels of divisions by changing the Sub, Locality, City, and Division data. There's currently a duplication in there. (Technically, I live in Catedral, Old San Juan, San Juan, San Juan, PR, according to maps currently. That's one extra San Juan). It would be nice to fix this, that's all.

Now yes, it could be that someone could change the way they view the current division of areas in Old San Juan, but even still, my research uncovered a newer system circa 1850's that's very different than the older system we're using. Why isn't that being used, if it is verifiable in print?

I'll have to look up Census data and review this more.

--------------------

Angela Morley

[Gela]

So apparently the 2010 Census data continues to use the old system, but I have found that the boundaries for some of the sublocalities don't quite match up. I'm editing them now to fix those boundaries to match current census data.

[davsot]

The localities should remain the way they are. Localities belong to the city of San Juan, the sublocalities under this are what vary. You should also verify Hato Rey, which has a real problem. 

You could begin reordering the Old San Juan if you like, but I should add that I took those sub-locaities from the 2000 Census data. Both seem like valid sources of info, which is why I welcome your proposal to update the naming system. 

Old San Juan is not a city, it is a barrio of San Juan. That should be clear. 

Most of the locality divisions were from official coordinates so they should not be altered with the exception of Hato Rey which I have yet to understand. 

[Angela Morley]

The major issue I've seen is that the barrio system doesn't quite work correctly with Google Mapmaker, which is why I was looking into it (some addresses are Calle Este, San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico, which looks a little wierd). The San Juan district and San Juan City shapes are the exact same configuration, which seems wierd... shouldn't the San Juan region also contain Guaynabo or Cataño?

I have discovered a few issues while looking at this, including a zip code error and barrio alignment issues. I redrew all of the subbarrios in Old San Juan to match the alignments on the 2010 Census block data, which can be found here: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/maps/DC10_GUBlkMap/submcd/dc10blk_st72_subbarrio_sp.html

I'll take a look at Hato Rey soon, but I have a few things pending that I need to do before getting into that :)
--------------------

Angela Morley

[davsot]

The San Juan district probably refers to the San Juan Metropolitan Area, which encompasses a few municipalities, though I'm not sure how that would be implemented in Map Maker. What is sure is the a city is a city and San Juan city should be the same as the current border.