Re: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion.

[Simon Slater]

On Thu, 5 May 2016 10:10:35 AM Ian Sergeant wrote:
> 1. Any attempt to make something render on sparse parts of the map, is
> a rendering issue.  Any renderer is free to pre-process the data based
> on a population and remoteness algorithm if they wish.
> 
> 2. Personally, I make anything a town if it has services.  If it has a
> pub, a take-away, a supermarket, a post-office, and a fuel station,
> then it's a town.  I save hamlet for a population grouping without any
> services, and a locality for a place where there is essentially no
> population clustering.  This is a natural skew towards remoter
> destinations becoming towns, because they are service towns for
> surrounding areas, rather than necessarily having large populations
> themselves.

Post offices may be a good guide.  25 years ago there were at least 4 post 
offices 
between here (Swan Hill) and Kerang.  Now there is only one at Lake Boga, but 
all the other post codes are still in place, mail routing through either 
Kerang or Swan Hill.

The other places, Lake Charm, Mystic Park and Tresco, have a small group of 
houses, Lk Charm has a shop and caravan park, Mystic has a pub.

The passenger train doesn't stop at any of these stations anymore either, only 
the grain trains.
-- 
Regards
Simon Slater

Registered Linux User #463789
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Re: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion.

[Simon Slater]

On Wed, 4 May 2016 05:58:27 PM Alex Sims wrote:
> The other point I’d make (as I did some time ago) is that the labels are
> “British English” labels and form a hierarchy where the names make sense in
> the UK but shouldn’t be taken as a slight against any area. They are merely
> a series of words that define the level of population centre. 

Looking at the end of this post: 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2008-December/001089.html
made me think of our own experience with small towns.

In 1988 we moved to Kerang, Vic which had a population of 5,500, 5 pubs, 1 
small supermarket, 1 large supermarket with bottleshop, 8 churches and little 
industry.  However, Kerang supported a regional farming population of 20,000.  
When we moved 50 miles up the road 10 years later, the population was 4,500.  
10 years later 1 pub burned down, 5 years later so did another.  Now the 
population is below 4000 I think, but the regional population serviced is 
still about the same and there is more industry in the town.

I assume computerization and mechanization means the increase in industry 
without population increase.  Also with amalgamation of farms, many houses are 
now available for those who work in town, so these would not be counted in the 
town stats.

My thought was to look at the amenities etc listed for a place within OSM 
itself for use as a guide to classification.  Would this be a purely subjective 
process ie looking at the map, or can this type of data be easily queried from 
the database for a more objective approach?

In the latter case, weights could be applied to different amenities, 
combination with other sources eg remoteness index, etc ...

The caveat here is that the more amenities mapped correlate with activity / 
interest in that location.
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Re: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion.

[Warin]

On 4/05/2016 12:50 AM, Christopher Barham wrote:


On 03 May 2016, at 14:22, Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com 
> wrote:






Why judge on the population?
Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ... 
they go hand in hand.
Populations are usually stated - on the entry signs to towns, 
villages .. and collected by the ABS. So verifiable and accessible.

Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts quickly.
Usually the relationship between population centres remains fairly 
static .. if one grows so do the surrounding ones.
Much easier to quickly asses and correctly tag this way. So it 
satisfies the KISS principle.



City is not just a function of population - It’s can also be a 
political appointment/status? - e.g. Charters Towers and Redcliffe are 
cities : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Australia





Yes there is an 'official designation system' ... subject to political 
pressure and separate rules for each state.
I think the best guide we have is the population, certainly I think it 
is much better than the officially given 'status'.


--
I did leave out of the original post that the ABS data may include more 
'cities' with populations over 10,000 than the present OSM data base 
contains ... yet to sort that out.



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Re: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion.

[cleary]

 
>From what you have written, I think you are probably right to change
classificaiton of Quobba Station to village rather than town.
 
In regard to smaller rural centres, I have also been wondering about
classifications. In South Australia, some rural properties constitute
their own official location with their own allocated postcode. In one
case the farm is known as "Oakvale" but the official Government-approved
name for the location with defined boundaries and its own allocated
postcode is "Oakvale Station". I had originally labelled it as
place=farm but the OSM WIki says that if the farm is not part of a
larger settlement, then it should be labelled as "isolated_dwelling".
Since it is its own suburb and not part of a larger settlement, I have
labelled it as place=isolated_dwelling.
 
"Hamlet" can be a small population but does not necessarily have a
central location- thus Mossgiel in NSW has a defined area and postcode
with scattered farms in the area but there is no centre with shops or
services - thus it is tagged as place=hamlet. Once a place has shops,
pub, other services etc. I think it qualifies as a "village".  But two
places could be villages even though one is a fair bit larger than the
other - if you can get food and fuel etc. but it's not big enough to be
a town, then "village" is a good classification.
 
In NSW, "city" is an official Local Government Area status approved by
Government so that some larger towns (and their surrounding areas) are
designated as cities e.g Albury, Waga Wagga, Griffith and locations
within their city boundaries are officially "suburbs". The "suburb" with
the same name as the LGA is usually also identified as "city". In
Sydney, some major suburban centres such as Parramatta are identified by
Government as cities. I think the official classification works fairly
well in NSW  and is useful guide for tagging in OSM but not sure about
other states.
 
Then there are areas that have defined boundaries as "suburb" and
designated postcodes but have no permanent population as far as I know
(such as Jagungal Wilderness in NSW or Danggali in SA). Not sure how to
classify them. "Locality" is used for much smaller places that have no
boundaries, postcode or population and seems not the right tag for
larger areas with defined boundaries.
 
 
 
On Tue, May 3, 2016, at 10:22 PM, Warin wrote:
>
> Hi,


> I came across Quobba Station and Canarvon where Canarvon is a
> 'village' and Quobba Station is a 'town'. I know Canarvon is larger
> than Quobba Station! So I re-tagged Quobba Station as 'village'. But
> I wondered on it.. so looked up the OSMwiki .. not much help... the
> Australian tagging guidelines ... errr not really. I then considered
> getting all the Australian OSM data on places with the population
> data, Got the cities data fine, but the towns data is too large a
> single bite and the server objected. Fine, I worked on the city
> data. Some 90 are set as cities... I'll ignore those above 10,000
> people and list the others here so you have an idea of those that
> maybe reclassified as 'towns' under my proposal. If a place is close
> to the 10,000 mark and there are no others around that location then
> I'd consider it a city, but other wise a town. Charters Towers
> 8,234 Charleville        4,700 Caloundra        3,550 Winton
> 1,337 I know Winton ... it is smaller than Longreach (both in
> population, about 3 times, and number of pubs).. yet Longreach is
> not tagged a city?
>
> _Conclusion_: there is a significant error in the relative ratings
> between places - even ones that are not that far apart! The situation
> with towns and villages is more numerous! The server objected to my
> bulk download ... so I'll do that in bits later ... unless there is no
> point - that is if there are strong objections here? Little point in
> doing the large bit of work if there will be no outcome. So below is a
> small attempt to clarify and simplify the situation in Australia. From
> the _OSM wiki_ I get the following use of occupied places By
> population.
> city>100,000>town>10,000>village>200>hamlet>100
> _ The present Australian use appears to be roughly _ By population.
> city>10,000>town>1,000>village>100>hamlet>10

>
> I think that is reasonable. The difference between the two is that
> Australia has a smaller than 'average' population density, so smaller
> places have more facilities due to the distance involved to get to the
> nearest larger place. For example - Australia is about the same size
> and mainland USA .. but 1/10 th the population.. so it stands to
> reason that the Australian population density would be about 1/10th ..
> so a 'town' would be about 1/10th too. Why judge on the population?
> Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ...
> they go hand in hand. Populations are usually stated - on the entry
> signs to towns, villages .. and collected by the ABS. So verifiable
> and accessible. Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts 

Re: [talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion.

[Christopher Barham]

> On 03 May 2016, at 14:22, Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 

> 
> Why judge on the population? 
> Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ... they go 
> hand in hand. 
> Populations are usually stated - on the entry signs to towns, villages .. and 
> collected by the ABS. So verifiable and accessible.
> Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts quickly. 
> Usually the relationship between population centres remains fairly static .. 
> if one grows so do the surrounding ones. 
> Much easier to quickly asses and correctly tag this way. So it satisfies the 
> KISS principle.


City is not just a function of population - It’s can also be a political 
appointment/status? - e.g. Charters Towers and Redcliffe are cities : 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Australia 



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[talk-au] place=? An oldie but no past conclusion.

[Warin]

Hi,

I came across Quobba Station and Canarvon where Canarvon is a 'village' 
and Quobba Station is a 'town'. I know Canarvon is larger than Quobba 
Station!


So I re-tagged Quobba Station as 'village'.

But I wondered on it.. so looked up the OSMwiki .. not much help... the 
Australian tagging guidelines ... errr not really.


I then considered getting all the Australian OSM data on places with the 
population data,


Got the cities data fine, but the towns data is too large a single bite 
and the server objected. Fine, I worked on the city data.


Some 90 are set as cities... I'll ignore those above 10,000 people and 
list the others here so you have an idea of those that maybe 
reclassified as


'towns' under my proposal. If a place is close to the 10,000 mark and 
there are no others around that location then I'd consider it a city, 
but other wise a town.


Charters Towers8,234

Charleville4,700

Caloundra3,550

Winton1,337

I know Winton ... it is smaller than Longreach (both in population, 
about 3 times, and number of pubs).. yet Longreach is not tagged a city?


_Conclusion_: there is a significant error in the relative ratings 
between places - even ones that are not that far apart!


The situation with towns and villages is more numerous!

The server objected to my bulk download ... so I'll do that in bits 
later ... unless there is no point - that is if there are strong 
objections here?


Little point in doing the large bit of work if there will be no outcome.

So below is a small attempt to clarify and simplify the situation in 
Australia.


From the _OSM wiki_ I get the following use of occupied places

By population.

city>100,000>town>10,000>village>200>hamlet>100

_The present Australian use appears to be roughly _

By population.

city>10,000>town>1,000>village>100>hamlet>10

I think that is reasonable.

The difference between the two is that Australia has a smaller than 
'average' population density,


so smaller places have more facilities due to the distance involved to 
get to the nearest larger place.


For example - Australia is about the same size and mainland USA .. but 
1/10 th the population..


so it stands to reason that the Australian population density would be 
about 1/10th .. so a 'town' would be about 1/10th too.


Why judge on the population?

Larger populations get more services - Police, Medical, Education ... 
they go hand in hand.


Populations are usually stated - on the entry signs to towns, villages 
.. and collected by the ABS. So verifiable and accessible.


Yes they do change .. but not by vast amounts quickly.

Usually the relationship between population centres remains fairly 
static .. if one grows so do the surrounding ones.


Much easier to quickly asses and correctly tag this way. So it satisfies 
the KISS principle.


_Problems_... ?

 In large centres like Sydney and Melbourne some parts would be judged 
as 'cities' in their own right ...


not certain if that is a problem or not? Comments? I am more concerned 
with the country side, rather than the messy cities.


Are there any objections/comment/other ideas to the above ?

-

I have read the past posts on this ...

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2008-December/001079.html

but I could draw no reasonable conclusion.

There was a suggestion that the number of pubs be used ... which I think 
is quite Australian,


I use it to judge safety when parked .. less than 3 pubs = safe.. 
everyone knows everyone. More than 2 - cover and lock up.


By pubs

city>20>town>3>village>1>hamlet

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