If you fancy yourself (or know one!) a political scientist steeped enough in US law, history and politics sufficient to discuss subtle, nuanced topics like Home Rule and Dillon's law, a Discussion in our wiki could use your wisdom and guidance.
As the OSM community in USA discussed boundary=administrative at length in 2017, admin_level got "mostly" hashed out, with a "settled" consensus about COGs, MPOs, SPDs and their ilk. (Briefly, admin_level=2 federal, 4 state, 6 county and 8 city/town are rough rungs, 7 emerged for townships and 5 is the multi-county glom-of-6s New York City, OSM's only 5 in the USA). But COGs/MPOs/SPDs and their ilk stuck in many craws and apparently is difficult for some, even many. The topic is active again at https://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Talk:United_States_admin_level#Recently_added_Connecticut_COG_.28Regions.29_as_5_and_CDP_as_10_should_be_deleted and seems to need the assistance of seasoned political scientists who can say whether a COG in Connecticut, for example, is "a government" or not. (I say a COG/MPO is a LIMITED government, like a sewer district, so isn't "really" a "full spectrum" government, therefore shouldn't get an admin_level value, as this key associates with boundary=administrative). Some Wikipedia links to "Home Rule in the USA" and "Dillon's Rule" are clickable at the end of that long Discussion, then I "run out of intellectual gas." Please help this Discussion if you have this sort of knowledge / wisdom to contribute. Thank you, SteveA California _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
