[OSM-talk] City browsing

[OJW]

I just received a request via my website for various improvements to the OSM 
city page [1].  Since I'm not actively working on that project at the moment 
(and since it's just a mockup of what a proper app would do) I'm wondering if 
we have any web programmers who'd like to continue the city-pages project

Maintain a database of cities - either extract them from planet.osm, or from 
Nick's search app [2], or by prodding the OSM developers until a search 
function appears in the API.

Auto-render the cities - either download OSM/XML files from the API or 
generate them from planet.osm/local database, then use osmarender to create a 
map of each city.

Provide data - once the OSM/XML files are downloaded, store them so that 
people can click "OSM of Birmingham (gzipped)" to download the relevant file.

Placename hierarchy - prod some people to start implementing the "is_in" tag 
[3] and use it to generate a browsable list of places.  Use that for links 
"up" (you're viewing "London", would you like to see "England") and links 
down (you're viewing Bedfordshire, here's a list of towns and villages), plus 
all the "featured locations", "lists of islands", "category:coastal towns" 
etc.

Links to OSM slippy map of the area, link to wikipedia article, OSM wiki 
article, provide lat/long that can be pasted into JOSM, feedback form for 
capturing map errors, etc.

Look for external links [4] in the map data, and use the osmarendered image to 
create imagemap linking to pub guides, wikipedia articles, etc.

Like I said, we know pretty well how to do all these things, it just take 
someone to get suitable webhosting arrangements, do some web programming, and 
start trying-out ideas.

This sort of city browser was mentioned as one of the requirements for OSM's 
new front-page, but it seems to have been forgotten about in terms of finding 
people to implement it.

Best regards,

OJW


[1] http://almien.co.uk/OSM/Cities/
[2] http://gagravarr.org/cgi-bin/where_is_it.py
[3] 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Placename_hierachies
[4] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/External_links

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