I think using services is more useful. The classification "city" is a problem as it has multiple meanings (it can mean the inner city central business district or it can mean the larger city local government area or it can mean the very much larger area of surrounding communities) but other classifications can be straightforward. In my travels (more extensive in NSW and Queensland than elsewhere), I have found local government areas to be a helpful guide to thinking about places and services. Towns generally provide services for people within their own local government area while cities provide services for people from greater distances including other local government areas. My preliminary thinking is Location : named place without residents. Hamlet : place in which people reside but it does not necessarily provide any services to residents. Residents may be in a concentrated area or dispersed over a wider rural area. Village : provides minimal services such as convenience store, fuel, hotel, primary school or multiple of these ... but not necessarily all of these. A village usually doesn't have a doctor but may provide some outpatient health services and/or an emergency ambulance to take people to a town for medical treatment but is unlikely to have in-patient health care. Town : provides services not only for immediate residents but also for surrounding places, usually within the same local government area. Services might include health service/hospital, secondary school, specialty shops such as clothing store, hardware store, electrical store, major national or intenational fast-food store, local government offices, library ... most but not necessarily all of these. Just one of these is probably not enough to make a town - needs a few or even most of these. The presence of a high school (or combined primary/secondary) is a very good single indicator as this is a service for a significant surrounding area and cannot be sustained in smaller centres. A hospital providing in-patient care is another good indicator. City : provides even more and higher level services and is a major centre for surrounding areas. The high level of services will attract people from surrounding local government areas. Smaller cities are generally contained within their own local government areas but may provide services for residents from surrounding local government areas. The city central business district (CBD) can be classified as a "city" while surrounding areas within the same local government area are "suburbs" although it is a matter for the local government body to decide whether to subdivide into suburbs. For example, in NSW, the rural cities of Wagga Wagga and Griffith have central CBDs and the surrounding areas within the city local government area are officially classified as suburbs. In contrast, the whole of the Dubbo residential area is part of Dubbo and there neighbourhoods but no official suburbs. It would still be a city even though it has no offical suburbs. I think a key indicator is that cities usually provide services for people from surrounding local government areas as well as local residents. Services in cities are similar to towns but on a larger scale and higher level. For example the court house would house sittings of the District Court, education probably extends to a university campus, health and hospital services include specialist/referral services. A town might have a small number of professionals such as solicitors/doctors etc but a city would have more. A city has many more shops and offices than a town. Then there are the larger cities such as capital cities - they can have cities within cities. There is central Sydney city (the CBD), then there is the City of Sydney local government area, but then there is the vast area commonly known as "greater Sydney" .... leading to some confusion when deciding what constitutes a city. Within "greater Sydney" there are smaller cities with their own satellite suburbs. Parramatta, Blacktown, and Penrith are such smaller cities within greater Sydney. Then there is Chatswood ... the local government area is known as "Willoughby City Council" but Chatswood is the actual city CBD (I haven't though this through but I think Chatswood is the city location in this case as that is the place where the main services are - the name of the local government body is less relevant.) Then there can be "in- between" cities. Newcastle in NSW is not the state capital but it rivals smaller state/territory capitals in size and services. It has other local goverment areas within the "greater Newcastle" area making it more like a larger city than a smaller one. I have no difficulty in naming Sydney, Chatswood, Penrith, Blacktown, Parramatta, Wagga Wagga, Griffith, Dubbo and Newcastle as cities and the same would apply to places elsewhere in Australia providing similar levels of services to residents of their own and surrounding local government areas. As a further thought, I am a little averse to using post offices as a guide. While would have been useful in the past, they are being closed and merged at a rapid rate and may almost disappear in the future. Do my thoughts help at all? On Sat, May 14, 2016, at 02:30 PM, Warin wrote: > On 5/13/2016 9:22 PM, cleary wrote: >> >> I agree that there is a need to improve our classification of places. >> However I think that taking population as the sole criterion will >> create more discrepancies than we have already. > > I think of it as a guide. In fact most of the OSM wiki to me is > a guide. > >> >> For example, I live in a Sydney suburb that has a population greater >> than the gazetted "state suburb" of Sydney (roughly the CBD area). If >> we adopted a strictly population-based criterion, my suburb and many >> others with more than 10,000 people would be "towns" in OSM and >> Sydney CBD be a "town". My suburb has about the same population as >> the rural city of Griffith, NSW. I think Griffith is a city but my >> suburb is not. > Yep. I take your point. Closer to home is Penrith .. a city or a > suburb of Sydney? > >> >> I won't keep going on and on, but there are many questions thrown up >> by relying on population alone as the criterion for determining if a >> place is a city or town or whatever. I think it has to be a sort of >> "common sense" decision taking population into account but other >> factors as well. But I do support the need to try to clarify our >> classifications and appreciate the difficulty in resolving the issue. >> >> > A start on the classification by features? Warning .. draft only! > > A city at a minimum has; > > one hospital with emergency services more than one police > station more than one public library more than one secondary > school a university more than one doctor's practice more than > one petrol station more than one bank more than one ATM more > than one Post Office > > A town at a minimum has; > > a hospital a police station a public library a secondary school a > doctor's practice a newsagent a petrol station a bank a Post Office > > A village at a minimum has; > > a convenience store > > > >> >> >> >> On Fri, May 13, 2016, at 07:11 PM, Warin wrote: >>> On 5/13/2016 11:36 AM, Warin wrote: >>>> On 5/6/2016 9:51 AM, Simon Slater wrote: >>>>> 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. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Australia post has; >>>> >>>> * Post Office (PO) and >>>> >>>> * Local Post Office (LPO) >>>> >>>> The LPO is usually smaller and within another business ..usually a >>>> local convenience store. >>>> >>>> The ABS has this >>>> >>>> http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/1d90c1ef4ac928d5ca2570ec0018e4f7!OpenDocument[1] >>>> >>>> "*Identifying towns* >>>> In this review *small towns* have been defined as population >>>> centres with between 1,000 and 19,999 people. Towns might ideally >>>> be distinguished from cities and from smaller rural communities >>>> according to functional criteria, such as the presence or absence >>>> of various educational, medical, recreational and retail services, >>>> together perhaps with administrative criteria such as whether or >>>> not a city or town council operated from within the town. While >>>> such conceptual distinctions might be made, it is difficult to put >>>> such definitions into practice. The above population size was >>>> therefore considered the most suitable alternative which would >>>> generally encompass these criteria." >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I tend to concur with this - simplest to implement and verify. I >>>> do note the 'medical' services that ABS have for identifying towns >>>> etc, that may be a usefull criteria in addition to number of pubs, >>>> petrol stations etc. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> I have gotten some 1,400 'towns from the OSM data base .. many of >>> these have no population given, but from those that do; >>> >>> Penrith 178465 Bunbury 64385 Maitland 61431 >>> Palmerston 46618 Melton 45624 Port Macquarie >>> 41723 Sunbury 33062 Pakenham 32911 Nowra >>> 32556 Albany 30656 Devonport 29051 Goulburn 21484 >>> Busselton 21407 Ocean Grove 16093 Bacchus Marsh 14913 Port >>> Hedland 13772 Torquay 13339 Coolum Beach 13154 >>> Broome 12766 Batemans Bay 12000 Lara >>> 11192 Drysdale 10927 Compare this to the 'cities'; Charters >>> Towers 8,234 Charleville 4,700 Caloundra 3,550 Winton >>> 1,337 Winton and Charleville 'cities' when Broome is not? No .. >>> sorry that makes no sense, even when taking into account >>> 'remoteness' and services. And the other end of 'towns'; Marble >>> Bar 194 Coral Bay 190 Coorow 176 Guilderton >>> 146 Marvel Loch 98 Popanyinning 87 Betoota 0 Ooldea >>> 0 Ooldea used to have a hermit, he could still be kicking ... the >>> others there were railway workers with homes elsewhere. Betoota used >>> to have 1, but he died. I don't think anyone could call these >>> 'towns'! Even on a 'services' scale. >>> _There is a clear disparity here. _ I hope to get all the 'towns' >>> populations that are missing entered from the ABS census 2011, and >>> then look again at these 'towns'. I have entered all the 'cities' >>> population data that was missing, so that bit is done. I am yet to >>> get the villages list, if I do! ----------------------- As a >>> reminder of what I first proposed OSM wiki presently has by >>> population city>100,000>town>10,000>village>200>hamlet>100 _ _I think for Australia; >>> city>10,000>town>1,000>village>100>hamlet>10 >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _________________________________________________ >>> Talk-au mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ Talk-au mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au >> > > _________________________________________________ > Talk-au mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au Links: 1. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/1d90c1ef4ac928d5ca2570ec0018e4f7%21OpenDocument
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