[Talk-us-massachusetts] Why Barnstable is such a mess, and other MADness (Wayne Emerson, Jr.)

[Greg Troxel]

Yury Yatsynovich <yury.yatsynovich at gmail.com> writes:

> My apologies, I was not careful enough with wording on admin_level. What I
> meant was to add "villages" inside Barstable (like Hyannis, etc) as lower
> level boundaries. I.e. if Boston, Belmont, Barnstable and other
> towns/cities are admin_level=8, then it makes sense to me to add their
> subdivisions as admin_level=9 or 10.

OK, I get you now.

Certainly, I think that having

  Town of Barnstable (the thing that has town hall, collects taxes) as
  admin_level 8

  Hyannis, Yarmouth, Barnstable (now the village name) as admin_level=9

sounds good; that represents accurately how I believe the world to
really be, and I think if we explained all this to the Barnstable Town
Clerk they would say we got it right.

As for other towns with named areas, the question is if they really have
legal standing and boundaries for the sub-pieces.  If so, getting level9
sounds good.  If not, they shouldn't.  Belmont has "populated place"
names like Cushing Square and Waverley Square but these do not have
boundaries and are not level9 entities.  (They also do not show up in
addresses.)

(And I think this is separate from whether the addr:city field matches
the level8; in Barnstable it seems it is supposed to match the level9.
In other towns, there may be other exceptions, like "Devens" can show up
as addr:city within the Ayer level8.  I am not sure there is a level9
Devens boundary that really exists or not - would require talking to
government people.)