John,
IMO, this is a red herring and I think you must recognize that to at
least some degree. Just like no one suggested we do 3700 import plans,
no on has suggested that we not add buildings to OSM. The question is
how, and if that "how" in part is an import, then what data, at what
speed, by who, etc?
We're not debating between "import" and "nothing" here. There were tens
of thousands of carefully hand-mapped buildings in Toronto before you
and a couple others rode in and quietly changed everything in the course
of a week.
I'd like to point out to you the interesting case of Kenton County Kentucky:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/361564
Go ahead and zoom in and take a good look at that data. Poke around the
rest of Northern Kentucky too while you're at it. Notice how good not
only the building data is, but landuses, named places, etc. The only
substantial import this area has ever seen is the TIGER road import of
about a decade ago. By the time we started our Hamilton County building
import (just north of the river), there were more than 150,000 buildings
added by hand in the region already.
I'm not saying this is the way Toronto/Canada needs to develop, but
don't imply that it's impossible - it isn't.
Cheers,
Nate Wessel
Jack of all trades, Master of Geography, PhD candidate in Urban Planning
NateWessel.com <http://natewessel.com>
On 2/1/19 7:35 AM, john whelan wrote:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=arthur%20mark%20drive%20port%20hope%20ontario#map=17/43.96262/-78.27069
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.9631101,-78.2732195,17.25z
https://www.bing.com/maps?FORM=Z9LH3
Port Hope Ontario is relatively obscure yet both Bing and google have
buildings and neither company would spend the money dropping them in
unless they saw a demand.
A small sample but I'm sure that others are quite capable of looking
locally for themselves.
I'm a shades of grey person so to me there is no absolute need to have
buildings in OpenStreetMap and I think different end users have
different expectations. I seem to recall osmand has a street only map
which takes up less room on the device. It's perfectly adequate for
some users.
I can make a case for both having them and not having any. On the not
having any way up there would be the buildings added by inexperienced
mappers using iD often in HOT projects. There are duplicates, strange
shapes that bare no relation to any imagery, and city blocks marked as
a single building. On the having them side would be where can I get a
coffee and wifi?
There are many users of the map who would like to see buildings or
more importantly have building information available in an electronic
form.
For Ottawa I think I can safely say the local mappers are happy with
the imported buildings. In OpenStreetMap there will always be a range
of points of view.
As you say it is for the local mappers to decide what they would like
to do. In this case is it difficult to define the local mappers.
Cheerio John
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