[OSM-talk] Post code areas

[David Fawcett]

Another thing to note.

In the US, Zip Codes do change.  In fact, due to closing post offices,
the data is more volatile than it has been in a long time.

David.

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 9:13 AM, Paul Houle <paul at ontology2.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>>
>> The actual areas are basically only useful for reverse geocoding
>> (click a spot on the map and get the postal code).  But whether or not
>> that's even possible is highly dependent on whether or not the post
>> office provides such information.  For some post offices, such
>> information is not meaningful.  What is the postal code for the middle
>> of a highway?  Maybe there is one defined, which represents what the
>> postal code would be if there were a post box there.  But maybe there
>> isn't.  It depends on the post office.
>>
>    In the US,  ZIP codes are really sets of points (addresses that get
> delivered to),  not geographies.
>
>    There are commercially available ZIP code boundaries that are made
> by a process of assigning plausible shapes that fit the points known to
> be in the ZIP codes.  I suppose these are done with alpha shapes or
> maximum-margin or some similar algorithm.
>
>    There's a lot of demand for ZIP code-indexed data in the US because
> everybody is familiar with them,  and because they're roughly on the
> scale of marketing activities:  you're likely to drive to stores that
> are in your ZIP code or nearby ZIP code.  On the other hand,  the more I
> learn about ZIP codes the more I learn how bad they are:  for instance,
> ZIP codes are insufficient to determine a person's congressional
> district,  commonly cross counties,  and I'm aware of at least one ZIP
> code that spans two US states.  ZIPs are also too big to do effective
> geodemographics:  for instance,  the ZIP code 14850 (most of "Ithaca,
> NY") contains some very rich neighborhoods,  some very white
> neighborhoods,  and also some neighborhoods that are poor and minority.
> There are good commercial databases,  however,  that give geodemographic
> profiles at the census block or individual household level:  enough that
> you could find out that the most of the 'rich' people in 14850 are
> college professors who don't spend ostentatiously so they wouldn't
> support a Nordstrom's or a Jaguar dealership.
>
>    Personally I like the TIGER county shapes for spatial control in the
> US.  These are accurate and tile nicely and,  I find I that the union of
> several counties is generally a good proxy for the kind of 'semantic
> regions' that I work with...  For instance,  even if I'm targeting a
> city,  the noosphere density falls off so much in the suburbs that the
> county is an effective boundary:  and if something out in the 'burbs has
> that much 'interestingness' it's probably semantically associated with
> the city anyway.
>
>    I'm currently establishing a spatial control system for the world
> and it's probably going to be based on second-level administrative
> divisions,  though I've got good third-levels for a lot of interesting
> places.
>
>
>
>
>
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