Starting with one site in Seattle, that eventually became the global site to what is now over 160 indymedia outlets around the world. All this expansion has left little time for developing global standards and some things common have lacked in upgrading. One of these things is the indymedia cities list.

This list shows on every indymedia site that exists, usually on the left hand column or at the very bottom of the site. As indymedia collectives go through the new-imc process, they get added to the cities list. Until recently, little work has been done to categorize and make that list reflect the diversity of the indymedia network.

portland indymedia volunteers have taken the autonomy of indymedia to a new level and have reworked the cities list that appears on the portland.indymedia.org site. There is no push to make this reorganization a global standard. This is just a breath of fresh air that will hopefully spread to give other indymedia's the comfort to do similar things, and help advance and ultimately define the portland indymedia cities list.

The cities list has been broken up heavily to make it easier to know where a particular imc is in the world. The old categories included: Projects, Topics, Africa, Canada, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, Oceania, South Asia, United States, West Asia, and Process. Just under the header of 'global imc network,' we have added the syndication and regional sites of us indymedia, oceania indymedia, and uk indymedia. Originally only the global site, www.indymedia.org appeared there.

For this cities list, the basic idea was to make the categories more defining of an area and ultimately align indymedias that would be working through similar regional issues, instead of continuing the socio-political lines that have always defined the cities list.

The 'Projects' header has been changed to Working Groups in this incantation, as those are groups working together on particular mediums. The 'Topics' category, the newest addition to the global cities list, has remained the same. However, an upcoming topic imc, the queer imc has been added. Nothing has changed with the 'Africa' header. Instead of Asia being defined in three different categories (West, South, and East), they are now grouped under one 'Asia' header. The 'Oceania' header has also remained the same.

The most striking changes have appeared under the 'Europe,' 'Canada,' 'United States,' and 'Latin America' headers. Europe, which used to just have many imc's grouped under this header has been broken up into six different regions. This is based geographically, and all geographic information came from wikipedia.org. The headers are include: Eastern, Western, Central, Northern, Southern, and UK. It is felt that this will help readers have an idea of where they are visiting. However, it has been said that Europe is much more complex than this and the describing headers are used both as geographic and political terms in Europe.

The headers of 'Canada,' 'United States,' and 'Latin America' have disappeared. Latin America became 'South America,' 'Carribbean,' and parts of the 'Turtle Island' header. Turtle Island is a name that people indigenous to North America used to describe the continent, it is employed here as an attempt to break free from the political divides and the lines on the maps that exist. Folks that use portland indymedia, especially those from Cascadia (which is who the site is geared towards), are aware of bioregionalism. Cascadians, and users of portland indymedia, have been calling for a bioregional 'state' and with that in mind, the 'Turtle Island' part of the portland indymedia cities list has been broken up into bioregions where available and into geographic regions where information about bioregions could not be found. This is an attempt to seed the idea that it is possible to destroy the lines that divide us and break free from the state control that defines us. The information on bioregions and the grouping of Mexico, Canada, and the US together has been called into question. This is a work in progress, feedback and suggestions are welcome.

This is a brief explanation of the different headers and where the information was obtained to define things in such a way. All of the information was culled from wikipedia.org, and most specifically from the regions listed on the US Regions page. The headers used include: Appalachia, Cascadia, Great Lakes, Great North Woods, Great Plains, Inter Mountain, Mexico, Mississippi Delta, South East and South West. The ones without links were not easily definable, so they were grouped in geographical context.

This is a work in progress, suggestions are welcome. Please add your comments to this article, if you have any suggestions for ways it should be changed. Please also offer some kind of reference for why you think the change should be made. Creating this new cities list took over 15 hours of research and compilation work. Much thought was put into this, and it would be appreciated if as much thought would be taken into offering critiques.

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PORTLAND LIST:
 http://portland.indymedia.org

global imc
network:

www.indymedia.org
us.indymedia.org
oceania.indymedia.org
indymedia.org.uk

Working Groups
print
radio
satellite tv
translation tool
video

Topics
biotech
ftaa
queer

Africa
ambazonia
canarias
estrecho / madiaq
south africa

Asia
beirut
burma
cyprus
india
israel
istanbul
jakarta
japan
palestine
taiwan

Caribbean
puerto rico

Europe: Central
austria
germany
hungary
poland
prague
switzerland
vienna

Europe: Eastern
belgrade
bulgaria
croatia
kasimov
russia

Europe: Northern
finland
norway
sweden

Europe: Southern
athens
euskal herria
galicia
italy
la plana
madrid
portugal
thessaloniki

Europe: Western
andorra
antwerp
belgium
grenoble
ireland
liege
lille
marseille
nantes
netherlands
nice
oost-vlaanderen
paris
west vlaanderen

Europe: UK
bristol
cambridge
leeds
liverpool
london
manchester
oxford
scotland
sheffield
south coast
west country

Oceania
adelaide
aotearoa
brisbane
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South America
argentina
bolivia
brasil
chile
chile sur
colombia
ecuador
peru
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
uruguay
valparaiso

Turtle Island

Appalachia
baltimore
charlottesville
dc
north carolina
philadelphia
pittsburgh
richmond
tennessee

Cascadia
kamloops (ca)
portland
rogue valley
seattle
vancouver (ca)
victoria (ca)

Great Lakes
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
erie, pa
hamilton (ca)
madison
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
rochester
thunder bay (ca)

Great North Woods
binghampton, ny
boston
danbury, ct
hartford
hudson-mohawk
maine
maritimes (ca)
montreal (ca)
new hampshire
new jersey
nyc
ottawa (ca)
quebec (ca)
vermont
western mass
worcester

Great Plains
austin
big muddy (so. illinois)
colorado
houston
kansas city
normal, il
north texas
oklahoma
omaha
urbana-champaign
winnipeg (ca)

Inter Mountain
arizona
idaho
las vegas
new mexico
sonora (mx)
utah

Mexico
chiapas
mexico city

Mississippi Delta
arkansas
new orleans
st louis

South East
atlanta
miami
tallahassee-red hills
tampa bay

South West
los angeles
san diego
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz
tijuana (mx)

Process
fbi/legal updates
indymedia faq
mailing lists
documentaion project
tech
volunteer

why this cities list?