[talk-au] place equals what BY features

Warin 61sundowner at gmail.com
Sat May 14 04:30:03 UTC 2016


On 5/13/2016 9:22 PM, cleary wrote:
> I agree that there is a need to improve our classification of places. 
> However I think that taking population as the sole criterion will 
> create more discrepancies than we have already.

I think of it as a guide. In fact most of the OSM wiki to me is a guide.

> For example, I live in a Sydney suburb that has a population greater 
> than the gazetted "state suburb" of Sydney (roughly the CBD area). If 
> we adopted a strictly population-based criterion, my suburb and many 
> others with more than 10,000 people would be "towns" in OSM and Sydney 
> CBD be a "town". My suburb has about the same population as the rural 
> city of Griffith, NSW. I think Griffith is a city but my suburb is not.
Yep. I take your point. Closer to home is Penrith .. a city or a suburb 
of Sydney?
> I won't keep going on and on, but there are many questions thrown up 
> by relying on population alone as the criterion for determining if a 
> place is a city or town or whatever. I think it has to be a sort of 
> "common sense" decision taking population into account but other 
> factors as well.  But I do support the need to try to clarify our 
> classifications and appreciate the difficulty in resolving the issue.
A start on the classification by features? Warning .. draft only!

A city at a minimum has;

one hospital with emergency services
more than one police station
more than one public library
more than one secondary school
a university
more than one doctor's practice
more than one petrol station
more than one bank
more than one ATM
more than one Post Office

A town at a minimum has;

a hospital
a police station
a public library
a secondary school
a doctor's practice
a newsagent
a petrol station
a bank
a Post Office

A village at a minimum has;

a convenience store


> On Fri, May 13, 2016, at 07:11 PM, Warin wrote:
>> On 5/13/2016 11:36 AM, Warin wrote:
>>> On 5/6/2016 9:51 AM, Simon Slater wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 5 May 2016 10:10:35 AM Ian Sergeant wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 1. Any attempt to make something render on sparse parts of the map, is
>>>>> a rendering issue.  Any renderer is free to pre-process the data based
>>>>> on a population and remoteness algorithm if they wish.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. Personally, I make anything a town if it has services.  If it has a
>>>>> pub, a take-away, a supermarket, a post-office, and a fuel station,
>>>>> then it's a town.  I save hamlet for a population grouping without any
>>>>> services, and a locality for a place where there is essentially no
>>>>> population clustering.  This is a natural skew towards remoter
>>>>> destinations becoming towns, because they are service towns for
>>>>> surrounding areas, rather than necessarily having large populations
>>>>> themselves.
>>>>>
>>>> Post offices may be a good guide.  25 years ago there were at least 4 post offices
>>>> between here (Swan Hill) and Kerang.  Now there is only one at Lake Boga, but
>>>> all the other post codes are still in place, mail routing through either
>>>> Kerang or Swan Hill.
>>> Australia post has;
>>>
>>>  *
>>>     Post Office (PO) and
>>>  *
>>>     Local Post Office (LPO)
>>>
>>> The LPO is usually smaller and within another business ..usually a local convenience store.
>>>
>>> The ABS has this
>>>
>>> http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/1d90c1ef4ac928d5ca2570ec0018e4f7!OpenDocument 
>>> <http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/1d90c1ef4ac928d5ca2570ec0018e4f7%21OpenDocument>
>>> "*Identifying towns*
>>>
>>> In this review *small towns*have been defined as population centres with between 
>>> 1,000 and 19,999 people. Towns might ideally be distinguished from 
>>> cities and from smaller rural communities according to functional 
>>> criteria, such as the presence or absence of various educational, 
>>> medical, recreational and retail services, together perhaps with 
>>> administrative criteria such as whether or not a city or town 
>>> council operated from within the town. While such conceptual 
>>> distinctions might be made, it is difficult to put such definitions 
>>> into practice. The above population size was therefore considered 
>>> the most suitable alternative which would generally encompass these 
>>> criteria."
>>>
>>> I tend to concur with this - simplest to implement and verify. I do 
>>> note the 'medical' services that ABS have for identifying towns etc, 
>>> that may be a usefull criteria in addition to number of pubs, petrol 
>>> stations etc.
>>>
>>>
>> I have gotten some 1,400 'towns from the OSM data base .. many of these have no population given, but from those that do;
>> Penrith		178465
>> Bunbury		64385
>> Maitland	61431
>> Palmerston	46618
>> Melton		45624
>> Port Macquarie	41723
>> Sunbury		33062
>> Pakenham	32911
>> Nowra		32556
>> Albany		30656
>> Devonport	29051
>> Goulburn	21484
>> Busselton	21407
>> Ocean Grove	16093
>> Bacchus Marsh	14913
>> Port Hedland	13772
>> Torquay		13339
>> Coolum Beach	13154
>> Broome		12766
>> Batemans Bay	12000
>> Lara		11192
>> Drysdale	10927
>>
>> Compare this to the 'cities';
>>   
>> Charters Towers	8,234
>> Charleville	4,700
>> Caloundra	3,550
>> Winton		1,337
>>
>>
>>
>> Winton and Charleville 'cities' when Broome is not? No .. sorry that makes no sense, even when taking into account 'remoteness' and services.
>>
>> And the other end of 'towns';
>>
>> Marble Bar	194
>> Coral Bay	190
>> Coorow		176
>> Guilderton	146
>> Marvel Loch	98
>> Popanyinning	87
>> Betoota		0
>> Ooldea		0
>>
>> Ooldea used to have a hermit, he could still be kicking ... the others there were railway workers with homes elsewhere.
>> Betoota used to have 1, but he died.
>> I don't think anyone could call these 'towns'! Even on a 'services' scale.
>>
>> _There is a clear disparity here. _
>>
>>
>> I hope to get all the 'towns' populations that are missing entered from the ABS census 2011, and then look again at these 'towns'.
>> I have entered all the 'cities' population data that was missing, so that bit is done.
>>
>> I am yet to get the villages list, if I do!
>>
>> -----------------------
>> As a reminder of what I first proposed
>> OSM wiki presently has by population 
>> city>100,000>town>10,000>village>200>hamlet>100
>>        __I think for Australia;
>> city>10,000>town>1,000>village>100>hamlet>10   
>>
>>
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