So is the key difference between a town square and a village green(*) the fact that the square is usually paved?
(*) No, I don't abuse 'village green' for 'any green space in a village'. A lot of the older villages in the eastern US are laid out roughly on the plan of English villages, with a green in the center. The green will typically be surrounded by such buildings as the school, a church, a post office, a government center, an inn, perhaps a few shops or private residences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich,_Vermont#/media/File:Norwich-VT-Winter-Panorama.jpg is typical. By the way, New York City has many squares; among others, the architects of the grid system planned one for each point where Broadway crosses an avenue. Verdi Square/Sherman Square, Lincoln Center, Dante Park, Columbus Circle, Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square, Union Square, Washington Square, Sheridan Square, Tompkins Square, Astor Place/Cooper Square, City Hall Park, Zuccotti Park, and Bowling Green all come to mind. Some of these are better modeled as very small `leisure=park`, but most have the property of being public open spaces where major urban roads converge, that function as urban gathering places. For instance, is https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/ac/ae/46acaefc5e243415deb7badb29b4113b.jpg a square ? What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Square,_Manhattan#/media/File:1_new_york_city_union_square_2010.JPG ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Circle#/media/File:ColumbusCirclefromTimeWarnerCenterNYC20050807.jpg ? Let's not try to bend over backward to make sure that only European squares qualify! On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 3:10 PM Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > sent from a phone > > On 29. Mar 2020, at 18:24, Greg Troxel <g...@lexort.com> wrote: > > Really, it seems like > you are trying to shoehorn european definitions into US naming when it > is just not the way it is. > > > > Frankly, I am not really familiar with the situation in North America > (besides some lessons about North American urbanism I have heard 20 years > ago). I am aware there are some developments that imitate 19th century > architecture, so even if many or most of the traditional city centers have > been razed in the sixties, I would still expect to find at least some squares > in north america. > > If you have a look at the wikipedia article on Times Square, it also mentions > its nature as a town square: “ Times Square functions as a town square” > > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square > It is also a model example in that it lies at the junction of import streets > and is emphasized by the adjacent architecture. > > The existence of squares is not a recent or European invention, for example > you’ll find squares in arabic or Chinese cities as well (you’ll indeed find > them almost everywhere), here’s a list of some famous squares worldwide: > https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_squares > > Supposedly we would not want to have different specific top level place tags > for neighbourhoods, depending on name components, so using place=square for > neighborhoods seems not a sensible interpretation of the tag, I guess we can > agree on this? > > Cheers Martin > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
