[OSM-talk] Residential areas

[matthew-osm at newtoncomputing.co.uk]

Hi!

On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 11:58:07AM +0000, Etienne wrote:
> On 11/1/06, Tom Chance <tom at acrewoods.net> wrote:
> >> > 2) Use highway=unclassified, residential=yes to mark up roads with
> >> > houses along them

> >> If you are going to introduce a new key "residential" you might as well
> >> allow it to have values left and right (based on the segment direction)
> >> to handle the streets with houses on one side only. (I look forward to
> >> seeing how Osmarender would deal with it.)

> >I think this is all getting too complicated, and if we ever move to Andy's
> >improved schema it will also be slightly pointless. It seems like we all have
> >different data we'd like tagged to roads (should navigation software send you
> >down it, are kids playing on this street, how should a pretty map render it,
> >how does it fit into $my_country's road classification schema, etc.).
> >
> >I don't see what's wrong with highway=residential for now,

> The problem with highway=residential is that the abbutters creep out from
> under the landuse=residential zones and make the map look ugly.

Yes.

> >think of it as being shorthand highway=unclassified,residential=yes. David
> >Earl makes a good point when he says that added complication will mean less
> >complete data, and we lose no detail with the shorthand version.
> 
> It's not complicated.  Either you tag (highway=residential) or you tag
> (highway=unclassified and landuse=residential).  Just dont tag
> highway=residential and landuse=residential in the same place if you want
> pretty results.
> 
> Everyone can carry on using highway=residential because the change is
> backwards compatible.  Turning off the abutters rule in Osmarender is not a
> backwards compatible solution.

I really don't like this idea of using boolean flags all over the place. I would
much prefer to see the following:

  highway=unclassified
  usage=residential

rather than

  highway=unclassified
  residential=yes

We then extend that to

  highway=<whatever>
  usage=<industrial|residential|retail|etc>

and then even

  highway=<whatever>
  usage=residential,industrial

for those (I would guess fairly few) cases when a road can really be classed as
both. In most cases, I would probably actually class them as neither.

This then means that "highway" is the political classification of a road,
whereas usage is the physical classification. This split is a very good thing,
IMHO.

("usage" is a suggestion, but there may be a lot better word to use instead!)

Comments? ;-)

-- 
Matthew