[Talk-us] Correct source for population=* tags on US metropolitan cities

[Clifford Snow]

Steve,
You may find this hard to believe, but I fully agree with you. I was
subtly trying to point out the futility of using data from these areas. The
government can change them at will. And apparently it looks like they are
going to adjust them again. I don't mind updating a city's boundary but
this game they play with statistical areas is nuts. Sure we could add in
all the census areas so someone could add up the number but how does that
help OSM.

Have a great day,
Clifford


On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 5:49 PM stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:

> Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us> wrote:
> > I just read that the Federal Government is asking for input on
> Metropolitan Areas concerning the standards for delineating Metropolitan
> Areas. You can read the announcement at
> https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/01/19/2021-00988/recommendations-from-the-metropolitan-and-micropolitan-statistical-area-standards-review-committee?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
>
> I feel like I'm coming into a conversation between Clifford and Minh
> mid-stream, so it's possible that I'm missing some context.  However, I do
> bristle a bit when overlap is mentioned between US Department of Commerce,
> Census Bureau "areas" and OSM.  These are statistical areas, not actual
> boundaries.
>
> While it is true that some limited areas like Alaska benefit from these
> relations (due to the cooperation between the state of Alaska and the
> Census bureau to delineate divisions of the Unorganized Borough as
> boundary=census tracts which "act like" administrative divisions), for the
> most part, OSM finds limited what the "Federal Government" (via its Census
> Bureau) defines as "metropolitan areas," or really any statistical "area."
> As our wiki states (Minh in [1] and [2], largely me, though with excellent
> input by Minh in [3]), boundary=census relations yield only marginal value
> to OSM, even none at all.
>
> I believe population values for a city should be for that city and that
> city alone, not any agglomerated area.  If those data are to be entered
> into OSM, let's define a key for that, as I don't know of an appropriate
> one today and I don't want to see the definition of the population of a
> city get muddied.  Thank you!
>
> If I'm offering information where it isn't appropriate or even welcome, I
> offer my apologies.
>
> SteveA
>
> [1] https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dcensus
> [2]
> https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/SPARQL_examples#Cities_in_a_metropolitan_area
> [3]
> https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/United_States_admin_level#Not_all_boundaries_are_administrative
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OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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