[Talk-GB] Non-intuitive addresses

[Mark Goodge]

On 13/02/2022 21:53, Tom Crocker wrote:

> I guess we all have our different intuitions about the meanings of keys. 
> I think what we're generally discussing are places albeit without a 
> current tag. I don't really see them fitting city blocks and that's why 
> I wouldn't use place=city_block with them. However, to be honest, if 
> that scheme was widely supported by editors, renderers and geocoders I 
> would support it and the same goes for addr:street on its own. My 
> version of pragmatism has me at addr:street and addr:place because they 
> seem workable and not incorrect, given this is an address schema. I 
> completely agree that iD not supporting addr:place is a major problem 
> for its correct usage but expect that's more likely to get fixed than 
> the alternatives.

Another reason for preferring addr:block at building/campus level is 
that, unlike addr:place, there are cases where it would be appropriate 
to combine it with addr:street. Although the Abbots Walk case that 
prompted this discussion doesn't have any other highway element in the 
postal address, there are places which do. Take, for example, this one:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/979468902

This is another example of a postal address where the lowest level of 
the address is a building rather than a highway. But, in this case, the 
official postal address also includes the highway:

2 Great Moreton Terrace
New Road
Ackers Crossing
Moreton
Congleton
CW12 3BP

(It also includes a double dependent locality, but that's a different 
kettle of fish!)

To me, the most logical set of tags for the local part of that address 
would be

addr:housenumber=2
addr:block=Great Moreton Terrace
addr:street=New Road

If we use addr:place for the terrace, though, then we can't use 
addr:street for the highway, as that breaks the rule that addr:place and 
addr:street can't be combined. The workaround for that would be the use 
of addr:parentstreet, like this:

addr:housenumber=2
addr:place=Great Moreton Terrace
addr:parentstreet=New Road

But that's not documented in the wiki and is still subject to discussion 
on this list. And it doesn't appear in the suggested tags when you edit 
an object in iD. So, even if that is the ideal solution, the reality is 
that it isn't going to be used by the vast majority of casual mappers 
who won't be participating in this list. However much we may wish it 
were otherwise, a solution which isn't reasonably intuitive to implement 
using the most popular editor isn't really a solution at all.

Mark