[Talk-us] Differences with USA admin_level tagging

Kevin Kenny kevin.b.kenny+osm at gmail.com
Sun Jul 9 19:25:41 UTC 2017


On Jul 9, 2017 3:14 PM, "Greg Troxel" <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:


Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny+osm at gmail.com> writes:

> So to me, what makes sense for New York:
>
> admin level 2 - United States of America
> admin level 4 - New York State
> admin level 5 - New York City, special case
> admin level 6 - County, Borough (within New York City)
> admin level 7 - Town, City
> admin level 8 - Vlllage, hamlet (where borders defined), community
> district (New York City), City of Sherrill

It seems from reading your comments cities are within towns, that a
house within a city is also within a town.


Villages can span the borders between Towns, but in  all cases the
residents of a Village are also residents of some Town.

Cities are independent of Towns. Every resident of New York is a resident
of exactly one City, Town, or Native American reservation.

Single exception: For most purposes the City of Sherrill is administered as
if it were a Village within the Town of Vernon.

I'm pretty sure I have the ordering right. The specific level numbers are
negotiable.

A handful of Towns have Wards. I've never tried to map one and I'm not
familiar enough with how they exist 'on the ground.

So I do not follow putting
them at the same level.  But it also seems that legally the notion that
a house in a city is within the town has no consequence, in terms of not
having to follow town law (perhaps there are no town laws) and not
having to pay town taxes.  So I think you are saying that effectively
being in a city means you aren't within a town, even though you are
within the polygon.  Is that a fair read?

The other question I have about your list is about town/city being at 7
vs 8.  It seems that in most states, the city type of thing is at 8.
The numbers are arbitrary, just leaving room for some 7 thing that might
or might not exist.  But it seems good in terms of data consumers for
~everything that's sort of like a city (to include Mass towns) to be at
8, to reduce the need for special-case code.  That would put
village/hamlet at 9, which strikes me as also aligned.

This raises the notion if there are places in the US where there is
something smaller than a county and bigger than a city in a meaningful
way, for example a state where cities are in townships but city
residents also have town law/tax consequences, which would lead to
town=7 city=8.

> This scheme differs from what I see on the Wiki only in that the
> sixty-odd cities other than New York and Sherrill would be promoted
> from level 8 to level 7.

Which I guess is exactly my question, more succinctly :-)
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