[Talk-us] San Diego Address Import Update

[Greg Troxel]

Tod Fitch <tod at fitchdesign.com> writes:

> What is a “city” in US specific OSM terms?
>
> I prefer a postal city definition as that is the most useful for
> routing purposes which I feel is the primary use of address data in
> OSM. Or are we dealing with some other concept of addr:city?

I see it as fairly clear that addr:city is about administrative
boundaries and what the local civil government considers to be legal
physical addresses (vs mailing addresses).

In Massachusetts this is very clear; every bit of land is in a city or
town, and there are (mostly) granite markers at the corners.

In states with unincorporated areas, it seems like there are areas with
cities, and then areas beyond the city where some rules apply, and then
areas that are in a county but not really in a city, so I can see that
this is complicated.

It would be interesting to ask the assessors or the police/fire
department or PSAP operators how they see addresses and cities in these
areas.

I would suggest that if we want to tag postal addresses vs legal
addresses that those have tags that are explicitly about postal.

> So what value to use for the addr:city tag values? There is an
> administrative boundary around the area that looks like it is from the
> original Tiger import with the name of “Pine Valley” as a
> “locality”. There is a post office there with a “Pine Valley” sign on

place=locality is funny and probably a Tiger artifact.  That makes sense
for what would be a "place name" in GNIS, vs an actual admin boundary.
If there's a boundary polygon, that seems likely to have come from
something real (although would be nice to check, if someone had enough
spare time).

I don't mean to criticize in any way your fixing the Pine Valley
issues.  It certainly sounds like you have been well more than careful
enough.
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