[OSM-talk] Nominatim & US places

[Anthony]

On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 2:32 PM, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Richard Welty <rwelty at averillpark.net> wrote:
>> 3) there's a post office, which delivers to a Very Large Area, much
>> larger than the boundaries of the CDP. the actual postal addressing
>> is what people going to Nominatim are likely to be trying to use
>> for "ordinary" lookups.
>
> Yes, and that's something that definitely does *not* belong in OSM.

For much the same as the reasons given here:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tigermap.html#ZIP

"The fact that ZIP Codes aren't required to be polygons makes them
difficult to map. They are networks of streets served by mail carriers
or just individual post offices and are a tool for mail delivery. They
also change periodically as required to meet Post Office operational
needs. Various companies have created maps by interpolating boundaries
between occurrences of ZIP Codes on the ground. However, this does not
guarantee that the U.S. Postal Service delivery routes will follow
this interpretation."