[Tagging] musings on landuse

[M∡rtin Koppenhoefer]

2010/9/27 Nathan Edgars II <neroute2 at gmail.com>:
> It seems to me that landuse is a mess.


+1


> landuse=agricultural would include values like farm and vineyard


does this include farmyards, or would they be residential or
industrial? What if they also sell to end customers?


> landuse=institutional would include values like military and cemetery,
> as well as schools


Why is cemetary institutional? Institutional is very difficult IMHO,
what about a farming cooperative? Aren't they institutional as well?
By looking at your examples on your user page more problems arise.


> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:NE2/landuse

honestly, I don't see why this would improve the situation. You are
changing mainly words but there are no (t yet) solutions for
differentiations like density, mixed use (what is generally the
predominant landuse in the centre of a city in good old Europe, and
where I refuse to reduce it to "commercial"). E.g. why should
recycling and landfill be in the same category as hospitals, embassies
or prisons? Also please don't confuse "place of worship" and churches
/ church property.

___

First thing I'd like to clearify is the intention of the landuse tag.
In urban planning landuse usually refers to a generalisation of
predominant activities / landuse in an area. In OSM we (some) tend to
do this more detailed (every lot, or even part of sites/lots). I
prefer the detailed approach, because it permits to create generalised
bigger entities automatically (probably very difficult if you want to
make it good, would require elaborate rules what to mix and what not).
This is land_use_

The other tag we probably are still missing is land_cover_. (There is
something in natural for instance, personally I already use landcover
for some things, like landcover=tree because they aren't all
landuse=forest).

cheers,
Martin