Brad, Where I live, suburbs are well known, have fixed borders (though they can be and are sometimes adjusted), and are part of your address according to the post office and local government. They are part of a larger residential area, which may be a city or town. Villages don't have multiple suburbs, though by some definitions you could say they have one. Where I live, the local government area has maybe 25-30 suburbs in it.
Neighbourhoods are named areas of a larger place that are not suburbs. They are smaller (usually - not always), may not always be in one suburb (they can straddle boundaries), and are names that are not given by official organisations, but are known to locals and may be searched for. For example, I used to live near a housing subdivision on a hundred or so acres of land. It's part of a larger suburb, but all the locals know that area as Oak Grove, which is what the farm and then the housing development was called. The subdivision was finished 15+ years ago, but there's still a sign that says Oak Grove where the main entrance used to be, and people talk about it as a place. It's not an official suburb, and if you addressed a letter to 1 Smith St, Oak Grove I have no idea where it would end up, but it is a place name that would be useful on the map, and to be able to search for. Stephen On 31 August 2011 22:25, Brad Neuhauser <[email protected]> wrote: > First off, I like this proposal too and think it's a long time coming. > > But, some references made me go and read the place=suburb wiki page again, > and that tag seems very similar, so can that distinction be clarified? That > is, why would one choose suburb over city/town/village or neighbourhood? > The distinctive thing about "suburb" as far as I can tell is that it's an > area located outside a city center, and this distinction is pretty much > self-evident from the map itself. Maybe there's a particular country or > culture where suburb makes more sense. > > Thanks, Brad > _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
