"town house" sounds like an Americanism to me, likewise "row house".
I do sometimes feel that a group of 3 adjoined modern houses aren't really "terraced", but by definition they are. On Sat, 19 Apr 2025, 10:07 SK53, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi John, > > I know exactly what you mean here (both my godson & my niece own such > houses), but I think building=town_house is likely to be deeply ambiguous > for someone not familiar with this usage. For instance the Wikipedia > article.on British use of townhouse is illustrated with a building which > looks like a small palace : > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townhouse_(Great_Britain). I think you > need to accept house=terraced and use an additional tag. > > I've checked other locations and a surprisingly wide range of tags are > used (my godsons house is building=residential), but most, including my own > mapping use house=terraced. The relatively small number of uses for > town_house are very widely distributed across the world predominantly in > Europe and North America, but a few elsewhere, such as West Africa. Usage > increased significantly fairly recently : > https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/house=town_house. I'd suggest that > the tag is probably used with different meanings. > > Terraced houses provide a certain difficulty in the UK because of their > ubiquity across all income brackets & classes (Belgravia, or Regency Bath > to the back streets, of say, Hartlepool). It would be useful to find a way > of distinguishing between them. Your town houses represent one easily > recognised subtype. > > There are one or two other housing types which are sufficiently > distinctive, but which I've noticed get changed to a more generic tag: link > detached houses (garage walls are shared between two houses), and > maisonettes (particularly blocks of four). Chalet (or dormer) bungalows, > and mews houses are others. > > I'd very tentatively suggest something like house=terraced, > terraced=town_house (or even modern_town_house). An alternative might be > integral_garage=yes. > > On a more general level there are other whole categories of residential > properties which it would be interesting to be able to identify by tagging. > I'm particularly interested in defective or non-standard housing such as > the BISF house (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BISF_house), see this > recent Mastodon thread https://en.osm.town/@SK53/114330002843070525. Some > of this can be achieved by use of existing tags (for instance a chalet > bungalow would have roof:levels=1), BUT that requires consistency in > tagging (all bungalows would require a roof:level tag). I therefore think > we could do with one or more additional tags to allow finer discrimination > of housing types. > > > Regards, > > > Jerry > > PS. Stefan Muthesius wrote a fine scholarly work on the English Terraced > House https://archive.org/details/englishterracedh0000stef > > > > > On Sat, 19 Apr 2025, 09:01 John Rowbotham via Talk-GB, < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello all, I appear to be in dispute with a relatively new mapper about >> one of the most popular forms of housing in my area. >> >> >> >> I've had several of my tags changed from terraced house to town house. >> The mapper says town houses aren't valid. >> >> >> >> These are hundreds of domestic brick built properties constructed in the >> last 7 years, all fitted with solar panels, some with vehicle access >> through void parts of the ground floor area to gated parking at their >> rears, some with 'attic dressing rooms' on their third floors. Talking to >> the original designers and planners of the estate, the idea (reflected in >> marketing and promotion which spoke of 'modern town houses'), the intention >> was to modernise the feel of traditional back-to-back Victorian terraces >> common in the borough and mostly built in response to the 1880 Act. >> Indeed, something that really interested the Royal team who visited during >> the build was the difference between the old style and these 21st century >> versions. >> >> >> >> So - is using 'town house' banned, as my correspondent says, or a useful >> way to differentiate between 120 years' of connected domestic housing >> design? I'm happy to be overruled if we can't use the tags this way. But >> I did do the legwork on site to call the properties what they are known as >> based on conversations with their builders. >> >> >> >> Changeset #165128178 <https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/165128178> >> is typical. I did offer to meet the mapper at the nearby (excellent) pub >> for a chat and share ideas but it seems now that he does most of his >> mapping near Niagara Falls. >> >> >> >> Thanks for any tips or ideas, John. >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Talk-GB mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb >> > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb >
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