[Tagging] Reviving the path discussion - the increasing, importance of trails in OSM

[Jarek Piórkowski]

On Sun, 31 May 2020 at 03:16, Daniel Westergren <westis at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, two things.
>
> Function vs physical characteristics
> First, I've increasingly realized what's probably at the heart of this 12+ years discussion, the enormous problem of interpreting highway=path|footway|cycleway (just like is currently being discussed about highway=track) in two entirely conflicting ways, as someone has mentioned, function VS physical characteristics.

As I recall, a long time ago this thread started off with the concern
"people from the city might die on this hiking trail". Is that a
function or a physical characteristic?

>2. the default OSM rendering not considering physical characteristics (particularly for non-urban ways) ...

I am not clear on the definition of "urban" you use. I notice you also
used this word in the doc you've written up (thank you!). Are my
examples "urban"? They're well within city borders, near to urban
areas, but they're not like a sidewalk. At what point do we cross from
a city park pathway to a non-urban way?

--Jarek