[Talk-us] Why does the USA currently lag in OSM map quality?

[Paul Johnson]

I'm thinking if they wanted broader input, they'd use the mailing list and
not the forum.

But I think a big part of it is the US is very large, and very empty.  Plot
out a wall size map of the US, now pin the tail on the map.  Unless you
bumped a wall on the way there or have an acute sense of space with your
eyes closed and managed to stab somewhere in the Coruscant-like DFW
megaplex (seriously, drive US 75 south into DFW at night and you'll go over
a rise near Anna, TX from which DFW appears to roll from where you are all
the way to the horizon ahead of you; it's probably geographically larger
than several of the smallest states by area, possibly even combined), you
probably just pinned the tail to a part of the country that is just as
empty now as before Manifest Destiny.  Possibly even emptier given The
Removal and two waves of urbanization.

People map where they know.  People know where they are.  Where are the
people in the US?  Well, if you take the top ten most populated
metropolitan statistical areas in the US,  you account for 97% of the US
population, and with the exception of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, they're all
within a day's bicycle ride or less of an ocean (I'm including places as
far in as Portland given I've made that ride to the ocean by bicycle
before, and I'm not even horribly fit or in great shape).  Extend it out to
the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas, and you leave a very small
fraction of 1% of the US population to account for the remaining 281
metropolitan statistical areas and 536 micropolitan statistical areas.

TL;DR, Hitchhiker's Guide validated version:  When randomly sampled by
township and range, averaged out and rounded to the nearest integer, the
population of the US is 0.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Mike N <niceman at att.net> wrote:

> FYI - there's a general discussion on "Why does the USA currently lag in
> OSM map quality?" over on a web forum:
>
> http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=30121
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-us mailing list
> Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
>
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