[Talk-us] TIGER 2022 PLACE dataset

[Zeke Farwell]

I've been working on place=town, place=village, and place=hamlet
classifications in Vermont and thinking about how CDPs may be helpful to
this effort.  The town of Milton has a place node
<https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/622776905>, a boundary=census
<https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/199120> (CDP), and a
boundary=administrative <https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/8897021>.
The administrative boundary represents the area that the Town of Milton
government has authority over.  The place node represents the built up area
that is considered a town.  Here I use "town" in the small t sense of a
built up area rather than the large T sense of an official government.  The
CDP area represents the same thing as the place node, but as an area
instead of a node.  While I don't see a huge problem with mapping a
place=town|village|hamlet as an area (likely based on a CDP area), I
believe the standard layer won't display a label.  Other than that, having
both a node tagged place=town and an area tagged boundary=census seems like
duplication to me.  They even both link to the same wikidata item
Q1789757.  For a map renderer to effectively use the CDP area, they'd need
to de-duplicate so they don't get two Milton labels.  This could probably
be done, but I'm not sure if any data consumers are prepared to actually do
this.

Side note: does anyone know of an interactive map of 2020 census data that
shows CDPs with their population?  I've found a map that show population by
census tracts and a map that shows CDPs, but not the populations of the
CDPs.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/data/interactive-maps.html

Zeke



On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 2:24 PM MoiraPrime via Talk-us <
talk-us at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

> Now that I think about it... if a census designated place... is
> *designated* by the census, and the census is the one giving us the data,
> that sounds like it's the most verifiable and accurate data you can get. Am
> I wrong here? 🤔
> On 1/19/2023 11:03 AM, Brian M. Sperlongano wrote:
>
> I personally wish we would stop re-defining perfectly working dictionary
> words.  I understand that sometimes the word used in a *tag* has to include
> a broader or narrower concept to make mapping work.  But a boundary that
> comes from an authoritative data source is perfectly VERIFIABLE.  It is not
> OBSERVABLE on the ground, and let's not mix those things up.  A boundary is
> a boundary because some political authority or authorities say it is.
>
> On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 2:57 AM stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:
>
>> Nice, Elliott.  +1 to everything!
>>
>> Things in OSM get mapped because "they are real enough to verify."
>> NEARLY ALL of the time, that's because "well, everybody can see them."
>> (Including the mapper who did).  With boundaries, no, we must wave our
>> hands in the air a bit here.  We must talk about these in terms of "already
>> agreed upon" so that we can "well state them, like on a map."  Today, we
>> find that reality really very good, even excellent, but it has its
>> real-world "can't do that, border is in dispute" or "despite our best
>> efforts since 1905 (pick a date), the two (maybe more) countries cannot
>> seem to come to agreement about exactly where a or the boundary line is."
>>
>> Census boundaries are not that, they are "wobbly, numerically-defined
>> things" that change, and rapidly.  They are essentially stale as quickly as
>> they are published.  They exist for a reason, as they are a snapshot of a
>> something.  Very much depending on local variability and reasoning (and the
>> reasons change everywhere we go) a census boundary might or might not be
>> "agreeable" to remain in OSM (sometimes for reasons closer to OSM,
>> sometimes for reasons closer to "the people on the land who say so").
>>
>> This a social process, where sometimes "local rules dictate" and
>> sometimes "that's the method the rest of the world uses."  Where and how
>> that unfolds seems to be a constant saga in OSM.  Certainly more often than
>> not, a harmonious method is found and applied.
>>
>> Realize:  "deep rabbit holes exist" and "sometimes people disagree" and
>> "I stand corrected, I regret my error" and "that's how that should be
>> tagged around here" and "that's how the rest of the world tags" and "well,
>> that's true, but there are exceptions..." are all true.  At the same time.
>> It's not rancor or disharmony, it is discussion.  More often than not, it
>> becomes harmonious.  Really, we are harmonious.  There are skirmishes on
>> edges, yes, and we grow.
>>
>> And a great many people say "that's a pretty good chunk of map data we
>> have here, OSM," nodding our heads.
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