[talk-au] Tagging towns by relative importance, not just population size

[cleary]

I have visited western Queensland many times but I am less familiar with locations close to the coast. However I have been through Rathdowney and it is not very big. I think the population you mentioned would be counting people in the surrounding areas.  A cafe, a church, a school, a closed servo and some tourists (as I was on one occasion) is, in my opinion, well short of "town" status.

If I think in terms of services such as education, villages probably have a primary school. A town is where they go for high school and a city is where they go to university.  In health services, ambulance stations and primary health centres (various titles but don't provide routine inpatient care or surgery) are found in villages. Hospitals that provide inpatient care and where some planned surgery takes place, are probably in towns.  Bigger referral hospitals and base hospitals are found in cities. Hamlets are likely to have no health facilities. If someone has to see a doctor, they probably go to a town. If they need specialist treatement or care, they are often going to a city. It there's a McDonalds, its definitely at least a town (they won't open in smaller places). Similarly a Coles, Woolworths or Aldi would be found in a town (they too would not build their stores in smaller centres), while smaller supermarkets (Foodland, IGA) and convenience stores might be found in villages as well as towns. Towns often have 24-hour services such as service stations  while villages often do not unless located on a major highway.  These are just a few examples. But I would think Rathdowney is a village, Beaudesert is a town, and cities (in my mind) are places like Brisbane, Gold Coast and Ipswich.

If everything is exaggerated so that villages are described as towns and towns as cities etc., then I think it just devalues the whole database on which the map is based.  It is is like writing lots of words and sentences in capital letters so that people notice them - which usually doesn't achieve the desired goal.

Good that you've raised the issue and I'll be interested to read comments from other mappers.




On Thu, 28 Sep 2023, at 9:08 AM, Graeme Fitzpatrick wrote:
> Thanks!
>
> Yes, it probably shouldn't be a one size fits all equation.
>
> Against what you said, Rathdowney in SEQ, with ~1800 people, only has a 
> cafe / takeaway / store with a few grocery items, pub, currently closed 
> servo, all of police, RFS & (honourary) ambo, primary school, church/s 
> but it's a very popular day-trip tourist stop, so I would definitely 
> count it as a town.
>
> Most people travel 30k up the road to Beaudesert for a full range of 
> services, so that should possibly become a city?
>
> But Maroon, 20k the other way, with only a primary school & a RFS 
> station, would only be a village. 
>
> Thanks
>
> Graeme
>
>
> On Thu, 28 Sept 2023 at 08:26, cleary <osm at 97k.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I agree that population is not necessarily the only factor but, in practice, population correlates closely with the services and facilities available in a location which is effectively the "relative importance", isn't it?
>> 
>> I presume you are considering putting bigger dots and bigger writing on the map  for small settlements in isolated areas. Map renderers can do that for themselves if they wish. It is more important for OSM to show on-the-ground truth.  If a small settlement has few services,  then showing it as a town is misleading. 
>> 
>> Windorah Qld and Ivanhoe NSW are both currently shown as "town" in OSM but neither has more than rudimentary health service (if any), a hotel, small primary school and service station. I couldn't buy a coffee in either place last time I visited. I don't think either place had even a small supermarket or convenience store. Unlikely to find a doctor.  Probably wouldn't find a car mechanic, couldn't buy a new tyre if you needed one. The locals all travel a couple of hundred kilometres for shopping, health care etc.  I find it very misleading to label these places as towns, just because they are the largest settlements in their respective vicinities.  The towns are the places where people go to get the goods and services they need.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, 27 Sep 2023, at 2:18 PM, Graeme Fitzpatrick wrote:
>> > Have just raised this for discussion on both the Forum & Discord, so 
>> > also throwing it out here.
>> >
>> > https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Australian_Tagging_Guidelines#Tagging_towns_by_relative_importance%2C_not_just_population_size
>> >
>> > Any thoughts or comments welcome, in any place!
>> >
>> > Thanks
>> >
>> > Graeme
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > Talk-au at openstreetmap.org
>> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
>> 
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