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<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I wanted to prompt a conversation about admin_level tagging in Australia and whether the current levels are appropriate.</p>
<p>For context, I have been slowly changing suburbs in suburban Melbourne back from place=town to place=suburb following (<a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2021-September/015042.html">https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2021-September/015042.html</a>) this discussion. Metropolitan suburbs are more correctly tagged with the "suburb" tag, however without being listed as 'towns' they don't appear as a label until a greater zoom is used. You can see the difference in <a href="https://imgur.com/a/QcDMBjv">this image</a>: the south east is using "place=suburb", but the north/west hasn't yet been changed.</p>
<p>Suburbs and Localities in Australia are all using <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative#10_admin_level_values_for_specific_countries">admin_level=10</a>, and s<span style="font-size: 10pt;">ome changes in early 2020 to the default map rendering (</span><a style="font-size: 10pt;" href="https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4016">https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4016</a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">) significantly reduced the prominence of admin_level 9 and 10 tags. While some other countries do use levels 9 and 10 for "suburbs", most seem to use it for neighbourhoods, sub-divisions, etc. I feel as though this makes Australia's usage a bit of an outlier, as a 'suburb' has more prominence than a generic neighbourhood would. There are also a few entries in the existing admin_level structure that seem out of place?</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></p>
<p>I can see this was discussed in September 2020 (<a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2020-September/013976.html">https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2020-September/013976.html</a>). In that thread, the hierarchy of places was agreed to be generally Country>State>LGA>locality (town/suburb)>land parcel, but the implications for rendering weren't covered. </p>
<p>I would like to propose that we adjust the admin_level to better align with the general usage of suburb within the community, with the additional benefit of better rendering consistent with the boundary usage internally.</p>
<p><strong>Current Usage</strong></p>
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 99.8312%; height: 32px;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 16px;">
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">2</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">3</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">4</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">5</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">6</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">7</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">8</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">9</td>
<td style="width: 9.74742%; height: 16px;">10</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 16px;">
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><em>Australia</em></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><none></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">State/Territory Border</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><none></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">LGA Border</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><span>District or Region Border (e.g Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, etc.)</span></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">Australia Post Postode Border</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">Locality Border (ONLY where larger than ABS boundary)</td>
<td style="width: 9.74742%; height: 16px;">Locality Border (suburbs or towns)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Proposed Usage</strong></p>
<p><br /></p>
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 99.8312%; height: 32px;" border="1">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 16px;">
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">2</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">3</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">4</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">5</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">6</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">7</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">8</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">9</td>
<td style="width: 9.74742%; height: 16px;">10</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 16px;">
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><em>Australia</em></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><em><none></em></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">State/Territory Border</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;"><span>District or Region Border (e.g Greater Sydney, Greater Melbourne, etc.)</span></td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">LGA Border</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">(none)</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">Locality Border (suburbs or towns)</td>
<td style="width: 9.73694%; height: 16px;">(none)</td>
<td style="width: 9.74742%; height: 16px;">(none)*</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>* Australia Post Borders would be changed from boundary=administrative to boundary=postal_code, or put here if appropriate.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p>Appreciate this is a big topic with lots of complexity. Would love to hear your thoughts.</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p>Dian</p>
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