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Should I delete ambiguous residential landuse if I finished adding details?

Hi folks,

Several times I encounter whole towns/villages ambiguously mapped as landuse=residential polygons (and sometimes with a place=* tag) at its first mapping attemps, when there are no details yet. Maybe it is to see the general extent of "built-up" area or the general extent of the town. But let's say later I have added all buildings and landuse's with enough detail that this residential landuse becomes ambiguous: within it there are markets, airports, parks, hospitals and any kind of landuse you would encounter in a normal town, and even real (smaller) "residential" areas.

So what is the best practice regarding this? Would I delete the large residential area polygon as the extent of build-up can be seen with mapped features now? Or do I simply try to fine-tune its extent (most of the time it is very general)?

Thank you.

town residential landuse

asked 31 May '18, 06:17

Privatemajory
1.1k●14●22●33
accept rate: 23%

edited 31 May '18, 11:44

SK53 ♦
28.1k●48●268●433

One Answer:

I was going to write "yes, delete it", but then I realized that the polygon might, at least in some cases, serve as a good place to put the place=X tag on. Remove the landuse tag, though.

Rationale: It is pointless to have overlapping, conflicting landuses. This is typical OSM iterative refinement. Stuff gets mapped coarsely at first and then replaced by better data. Having place=X,name=Y tags on a polygon and not on a point is potentially useful, because it shows the extent of the place, for example telling renderers how much "wiggle room" they have in placing labels.

answered 31 May '18, 07:50

turepalsson
836●10●16●25
accept rate: 25%

Good point. Thanks 😉

(31 May '18, 14:12) Privatemajory

Oftentimes I see landuse=residential being used when place=neighborhood and/or an administrative boundary is more appropriate.

(02 Jun '18, 04:45) Baloo Uriza

Well, I also think the place=* tag is best put on an administrative boundary. I don't really like the idea putting it on often vague limits of built-up / groups of buildings.

(03 Jun '18, 08:03) Privatemajory

By all means, if there are appropriate admin borders to put place=tags on, do so. However, don't let the absence of admin borders stop you from putting place tags! For example, the smallest legally regognized administrative subdivision of Sweden is a kommun (admin_level=7), and some of those are... big: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/935541

(04 Jun '18, 08:06) turepalsson