[OSM-talk] Adding Addresses to OSM

[Simon Hewison]

Andy Robinson wrote:
> I think postal codes stopped the need to hold a lot of address data. Since
> we don’t have postal_codes then we may want to use historical address
> sources instead.

That works reasonably well for countries where the postal code gets down as 
far as which side of the street, or in some cases, the individual property 
(e.g. United Kingdom, Netherlands). In many countries, it only gets as far 
as the local delivery office by the postal code.

US zipcodes are very rarely used by senders in their full form, and many 
recipients don't know their full ZIP+4 code.


Talking of addresses, I did some digging on my local council website about 
street names and addressing. It seems that when a developer builds a new 
street, the developer gets to chose the name of the street, but it must 
conform to certain rules:

You can't, for instance call something "Foobar Crescent" when it is in fact 
a square, and not crescent shaped at all, nor can the first part of the 
street name be repeated in a local vinicity, and street numbers should start 
at one.

(I have found at least five streets that do not follow those rules)

The local council then having taken a fee (per property), and upon 
officially recognising the street (or property), will put it into their GIS 
system, and notify the Royal Mail, and Ordnance Survey (as well as others), 
of its existence.

As such, it got me thinking. Would it be worthwhile declaring an interest in 
the street changes notifications with various borough councils, or am I just 
  a dreamer that publicly collected information should be available to the 
public?

--
Simon Hewison