[Talk-us] Admin borders in the US

[Mike N]

On 11/3/2013 12:55 PM, Richard Welty wrote:
> what i favor is going to a multi layer approach where some
> layers of OSM are ground verifiable things and others may
> not be. a consumer could choose to use some layers, and
> the admin boundaries (which are a real problem) can be
> moved and we can consider how to approach them differently
> because what we're doing now isn't working real well.

  In some cases, the boundaries can be attached to physical objects in 
OSM, where that relationship is legal and known; there is some value in 
having it on the same layer.

   But being able to perform a wholesale update of boundaries from newer 
sources is valuable.   Right now, all the cities and towns around me 
have updated their 'gerrymandering' style of annexation quite a number 
of times since the date of the boundaries that were imported.  Because 
many those boundaries have been stitched to any nearby OSM object 
(rightly or wrongly via the remove duplicate nodes function), a 
re-import to our traditional layout would be a major undertaking.  By 
contrast, updating them on a dedicated layer would be a simple task.