[Talk-GB] Named landuse polygons

[SK53]

I do use these from time to time. My usual use cases are:


   - Small named estates of social housing. These are common throughout
   Greater London and the name is usually shown on boards around the perimeter
   of each estate. Even for ones without such boards there is often good
   evidence for the name (for instance Municpal Dreams' blog on social housing
   often uses them). Conceivably these could also be tagged
   place=neighbourhood, but I think that may be misleading as they will
   usually be described as XXX Estate, YYY Suburb.
   - Student Villages. Gated sets of apartment blocks marketed to students
   only. Although a fairly recent innovation in the UK, they often represent a
   significant, and historically interesting development. These I also tag
   residential=student_village. There are at least 5 within a mile of here.
   - Very well defined, named residential areas too small to be a suburb. A
   pretty unusual occurrence because unlike the two cases above boundaries are
   often subjective. In many cases these will be discrete housing developments
   (private or social) which retain an identity. Often the name will be a
   local_name, such as Sterling Homes Estate, or the Wimpy Estate. A good
   example would be the 'Bomber Estate' in Maidenhead
   <https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/24992892>. Again I tend to avoid
   neighbourhood because what defines these places is often just commonality
   of building types and time of the development.
   - Retail Parks & Shopping Centres.
   - Industrial Estates & Business Parks.
   - Farm names on landuse=farmyard. I much prefer this to place=farm. I
   also often exclude the similarly named original farm house as these are
   increasingly not part of the farm itself. Even if the owner of the farm
   lives in the house it is unusual for them to farm themselves.

Other uses include:

   - Area with both landuse and a place tag. Most often villages, but some
   suburbs of Milton Keynes have been mapped that way. MK is unusual in that
   the grid and area names are well-defined.
   - Field names (a few examples to the W of MK). One of these
   <http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/232551091> applies to a former field
   which is now residential. Wrong in my view. (I really like the idea of
   capturing current or former field names in OSM, but I dont think this is
   the right way to do it).
   - Individual residential buildings. E.g., a hall of residence
   <http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/297281678> in London. Sometimes
   unavoidable.

So to take the examples to hand:

   - The two Hurlingham elements may represent real local distinctions.
   - Retail areas. Many of these names will be in use although probably in
   a) local planning documents; b) commercial estate agents and c) retail
   professionals. Names used by locals may different and harder to establish
   as accepted usage. In these cases it may be that the name is better placed
   in an alternative name tag, showing that the name is in use but only within
   specific communities or use cases. Perhaps someone from Geolytix could
   provide input on this subject as they have the relevant expertise.
   Alternatively diligent searching in the local press and planning documents
   may establish that the usage is current.

In short: in many cases names on landuse are a very convenient way of
ensuring a name used for a location is available with OSM without having to
precisely define it with other tags. In some cases the boundaries are very
well defined and the area is also defined with other tags such as place=*.

Jerry



On 17 January 2017 at 13:33, Andrew Hain <andrewhainosm at hotmail.co.uk>
wrote:

> A recent changeset in southwest London
> [https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/43807789] added names to
> landuse=residential and landuse=commercial polygons. The mapper has not
> responded to the changeset comment that I left some weeks ago. The names
> themselves read more like descriptions to me as a local and they were added
> to the existing polygons, which are somewhat arbitrary (you could micromap
> with a polygon for each block omitting all roads). These names appear on
> OSM-carto in italics.
>
> What is a general view on when it makes sense to add a name to a landuse
> polygon?
>
> --
> Andrew
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-GB mailing list
> Talk-GB at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/attachments/20170117/e3e1a03d/attachment-0001.html>