What I see increasingly happening is that local government geodatabases are getting better and better: to the point where it gets really hard to argue for using anything else.
That's not every data set, and not every place. But it points to the tension:* 'Is OpenStreetMap meant to be made, or meant to be used?'.* If you're in the camp that focuses on the greatest usability you'd want more imports, and more *synchronization* of imports over time. If you're in the community building camp, then the tension is palpable. But keep in mind there are plenty of fun things to map and discover that will never be in a municipal database. An alternate world where OSM started with a near perfect base map of the entire world, and just added 'other stuff', still could be an interesting world to map in. ---- The question of control does come up, as Serge outlines here: http://gizmodo.com/why-the-world-needs-openstreetmap-1495412839 In the case of municipal imports you're often dealing with the actual authority in question, and the issue of control is less pointed.
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