[Talk-us] [Imports] Zipcode Import

[jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 1:39 AM, Kate Chapman <kate at maploser.com> wrote:
> Mike,
>
> How do you plan to make money off of this?  When you buy road data from
> Navteq and Teleatlas you can get their ZIP code boundaries with it so
> everything lines up all nicely.  Though the quality of that data is usually
> more up to date than the ZCTAs.

I dont have a concrete plan, I must admit. But it looks like an area
that is not covered yet.

>
> Unfortunately I don't see the ZCTAs as being the best way to create ZIP
> boundaries.  I don't see people fixing the boundaries, I have no idea where
> my ZIP boundaries are for my area.  I do know my own ZIP code, but that's
> because I need it to give people my address.  Creating ZIP boundaries from
> address data makes the most sense to me, though on the other hand I don't
> see us creating point level addressing for the whole country anytime soon
> either.

Well,

>
> If you want to import data I would suggest looking at some other sources.
> There is a ton of local GIS data available that people want to put into OSM
> they just need assitance doing so.  If in the U.S. we are going to do a
> combination of imports and community mapping I think starting at a local
> level is the best answer.  There is a ton of datasets out there and we
> haven't really started asking around for them yet.

I am not going to import any more mass data into the OSM main server!!!!

What I am interested in is how to convert and prepare this data for
people to use when they want to, if they want to. At least now I have
a way to share the data (archive.org).

Now my next step will be to extract the county data out and start the
splitting process. As an exercise. The other thing that I am
interested in is how to convert these areas into regions with shared
edges.

This is still interesting and exciting for me personally, because I am
learning alot from it.

thanks for all your help and advice.

mike