Which is the better directory structure from and SEO point of view?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Janna Maica Feliciano: Either 1st or 2nd for a clean look :)
  But it depends on your site's main topic. Which should come first in your URL: Region Name or the Subcategory?
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  Kate Toon: Yeah well for this client both are important. so for example 'wedding venues newcastle' is the phrase they want to rank for. Should they use 'Newcastle' for the folder name, or 'wedding venues'? Or neither and just call the page 'wedding-venues-newcastle'
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  Janna Maica Feliciano: Assuming that the site provides various wedding services other than wedding venues to several regions in Australia then you may consider:
  
  yourdomain.com.au/region/services
  
  Regarding the target phrase 'wedding venues Newcastle', you can still rank with that even if you don't put them as is in domain URL. The more important is having a clean URL pattern. You can just include the keyword within the page content.
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  Kate Toon: yep agreed. Just wanted someone to affirm my thinking! Thanks +Janna Maica Feliciano ;
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  Janna Maica Feliciano: glad to help :)
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  Philip Crothers: Yeah, we went with something similar to Janna's suggestion with area first then service.
  
  One thing to watch out for if you're going to have multiple levels of services is not to have a keyword in the top and bottom level categories:
  
  region/service-keyword/service-keyword-niche
  
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  Tony McCreath: I always consider 2 things:
  
  If I have a folder structure then the folder only url should have content that makes sense.
  
  So if you go with /region/service then /region/ should make sense and have valid content.
  
  The other concern is duplication. This relates more to products and their categories. If products can be in multiple categories and your url structure is /category/product then you will have to deal with possible duplication issues. If you repeat the same services copy over multiple regions you will have the same problem.
  
  Bonus consideration is that Google has a patent mentioning folder structures so it maybe a signal they use.
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  W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 01:52:28 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/which_is_the_better_directory_structure_from_and_seo_point_of_view