[Tagging] New place value for single settlements (below hamlet)

[Greg Troxel]

Richard Welty <rwelty at averillpark.net> writes:

>> In the US, I am not aware of the concept of a place name for a pair of
>> houses.  Where I am (New England), there is "town" and "city", which are
>> really the same thing but differ by form of government.  Then within
>> those there are either "neighborhoods" or "villages", but those terms
>> are loose because they tend not to have any legal/government standing.
>    
> be careful about Town. the meaning of the term Town in NY state is 
> distinctly different
> from what you describe above. in NY, outside of Cities and other 
> incorporated entities
> (villages), the counties are tiled with Towns -- everything is in a 
> town, no matter how
> rural.

In Mass, every bit of land is in exactly one city or town, so the whole
state is tiled with [city|town] - there is no such thing as an
"unincorporated area".  The only difference is that a city has a city
council, and a town has a town meeting (slightly messier, but that's the
essential point).

It sounds like in NY there are "incorporated areas" being city (big) and
village (little), and it sounds like "unincorporated areas" are labeled
Towns.

This argues for adopting a placename hierarchy that is more general, but
it seems each state/country/etc. has its own notions.

> i would expect some definite state-to-state variation in what a Town is.

Agreed - that's why I said New England.
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