Ha. Totally missed this very recent discussion on the matter: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2012-December/010017.html
Nonetheless, feel free to respond. I'm going to go do some more homework ;-) Ciao, Brian On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 12:29 PM, Brian Cavagnolo <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey guys, > > In my research group (the Urban Analytics Lab at Berkeley's Department > of City and Regional Planning), we use parcel data for land-use > projection, accessibility, and visualization. For example, over the > past couple of years we worked with regional government agencies here > in the Bay Area to put together a parcel-level urbansim > (http://www.urbansim.org) land-use model for regional planning > purposes. We've also developed a prototype 3D visualization tool > (http://www.urbansim.org/Documentation/UrbanVision) to visualize > parcel data, and published on using OSM data for accessibility > calculations [0]. If you poke around the Internet for references to > our director Prof. Paul Waddell you'll get the idea. > > We really want a nationwide consolidated, standard parcel database to > build upon. Such products are available from numerous proprietary > data vendors who make it their business to routinely gather and > consolidate data from local government agencies around the country. > Of course these are often expensive and have restrictions on > redistribution. Our federal government has been trying for sometime > to create a nationwide public domain parcel database [1][2][3], but > this has not happened. Many states have managed to consolidate parcel > data (e.g., Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey). This is very > helpful, but notable work is required to adapt tools or research from > one state to another. And our state along with many others has no > such offering. As a result, parcel data users for whom proprietary > sources are too restrictive or expensive go about manually gathering > the data from county agencies. If the application doesn't span county > lines, and if the county is open with their data, this may not be a > problem. But these two conditions are often not both met, driving a > more intensive data gathering effort. Such efforts are often > duplicated for different projects. We believe that this landscape of > use and parcel data availability represents an opportunity to form a > parcel data community concerned with building and maintaining an open > nationwide (global?) consolidated parcel database. > > This idea is [obviously] inspired by OSM. And my immediate thought > was, Fun! Let's add parcel data to OSM! How do we do that? This > inquiry has of course led to numerous more detailed questions, the > most fundamental one, of course, being: Is parcel data welcome in OSM? > I've spent some time reading through the mailing list history. In > addition to gaining an appreciation for some of the issues regarding > the management of parcel data, I promptly learned that this is a > controversial question. For each claim that a consensus exists > against parcel data in OSM, a parcel data advocate seems to emerge. > This leads to debate, which seems to focus on a specific set of issues > that I have posed as specific questions below. I've also dusted off > and enriched the wiki page and associated talk page on the matter > (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Parcel). My hope is that people > can respond to these questions and we can reach a clear consensus on > {whether,what sort of,conditions under which} parcel data is welcome. > And of course feel free to bring up any issues that are not > represented in this list. Finally, even if you believe that parcel > data does not belong in OSM, but that a nationwide open consolidated > parcel database would be useful (and possible:) I'm super interested > in this perspective. > > Is parcel data useful to OSM? > > Can parcel data possibly be kept up to date? > > Does parcel data meet the "on the ground" verifiability criteria? > > Can tools be adapted to accommodate parcel data density? > > Ciao, > Brian > > [0] > http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conferences/2012/4thITM/Papers-A/0117-000062.pdf > [1] http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=NI000560 > [2] http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11978 > [3] http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40717.pdf _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
