[OSM-talk] Tagging: Rural and urban paths

[Nick Whitelegg]

I think it would be a good idea to distinguish between town and 
countryside paths in OSM. This would allow Freemap-npe to show only 
countryside maps, without the odd effect of showing paths which apparently 
end in the middle of nowhere in towns, due to housing estates unbuilt 50 
years ago. Also, much like the OS maps, this would allow the production of 
maps of the order of 1:25000 or 1:50000 scale which show all countryside 
paths, but which don't show possibly unnecessary detail in towns. 

Not sure how this would fit in to the upcoming new Map Features but I can 
think of a couple of ways of doing this. A quick way which wouldn't 
involve changing existing tagging would be simply to add 'rural=true' to 
existing paths. Alternatively, one could distinguish at the hgihway tag 
level, e.g. highway=footway for town paths or highway=path for rural 
paths.

Thoughts?
Nick