6 ms·

The USA is about 30x Finland's size by landarea and building data is primarily stored at the county or equivalent level of government (3000 of those). Imagine m

by rcdmd 8y ago

The USA is about 30x Finland's size by landarea and building data is primarily stored at the county or equivalent level of government (3000 of those). Imagine munging data from 3000 different counties, each with their own standards and systems of recording.

endorphone 8y ago
It should be trivial. It should be standardized. It is absolutely bizarre that we need to rely upon commercial companies to map things like streets and buildings when this is very accurately tracked by government. In an ideal world OSM data grids could be delegated to the appropriate governments, where it could have perfect precision with changes, street closures, one ways, redirects, etc.
- ISL 8y ago
  There's a huge difference between tracking for building permits and opening an API to the world. As an example -- in Seattle, sewer lines are still denoted with "sewer cards", digital images of pencil drawings on hundred-year-old paper. It is sufficient for sewer records, but utterly insufficient for OSM.
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    In Washington State, nearly all of the counties provide daily or weekly data exports for lot lines, streets and more. OSM regularly imports this data, but if you go much outside Seattle and are using Google Maps, prepare for a rubbish experience, as Google hasn't bothered to source the data directly from the counties (thus there are many missing and incorrectly drawn roads in the San Juans) and they're relying on a 3rd party vendor that is running a few years behind on pulling county data. To put this in perspective, in Kitsap county alone they've renumbered nearly 300k lots over the past few years. Google Maps doesn't get those new addresses or road names until its trickled down through USPS (who they're required to notify) then eventually to their data vendor, leaving you with a spotty patchwork of places that Google users have updated to the correct addresses. Google had a good strategy with sourcing user contributions, but pulling the public domain data that is offered freely for download and is literally the canonical source isn't hard, a small team can manage it for OSM, why is Google paying a 3rd party vendor that gives them trash instead of the latest data?
    - aaronbrethorst 8y ago
      This explains why I’ve had such a miserable experience navigating the peninsula with Google turn by turn directions. Thank you for the context.
- toast0 8y ago
  This is sometimes accurately tracked by some government, but there are thousands of governments in this country. Getting thousands of organizations to a standard is pretty hard when they don't get a concrete benefit from it. At the same time, the federal government has no business knowing the shape of my buildings, thank you very much.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  It should be trivial. It should be standardized. Your use of the word "trivial" indicates you've never worked on complex GIS systems. Whether it should be standardized is a matter of debate. Currently, each county or state or municipality uses the software and standard that suits its needs, and more importantly -- it's budget. The GIS needs of New York City are not the same as the GIS needs of Saint George, Utah. Saint George doesn't need skyscraper functions, and New York doesn't want to measure airports on top of mesas. The real world is messy, and so is pretty much every single GIS deployment. The real world doesn't digitize well.
  - oeh34thoens 8y ago
    Likewise, New York probably doesn't have the nuclear contamination that St. George, Utah does[0]! [0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%2C_Utah#Nuclear_contamination> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%2C_Utah#Nuclear_con...
  - endorphone 8y ago
    "Whether it should be standardized is a matter of debate." In the same way that vaccines are `debatable'. To export an accurate, up to date model of roads (and road data) and optionally building layouts should absolutely be the norm. Nor does a standardized export format necessitate using a single uniform GIS solution, of which I've had to inter-operate with a number. The real world digitizes spectacularly well, a lot of people just make poor choices and make excuses (or worse, buy nonsensical excuses) for not helping in getting there.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      The real world digitizes spectacularly well No, it doesn't. If it did, then the surveying industry would be out of business. Yet every time a building is permitted in the United States, surveys are done. Here's an example for a recent project surveyed in Chicago just this year: West Roosevelt Road; South Clark Street; a line beginning at a point 116 feet north of vacated West 16″‘ Street as measured along the west line of South Clark Street that is westerly 135.20 feet along the arc of a circle having a radius of 375.00 feet concave northerly and whose chord bears north 79 degrees 49 minutes 52 seconds west a distance of 135.20 feet; a line north 69 degrees 46 minutes 04 seconds west a distance of 101.85 feet; a line north 69 degrees 49 minutes 57 seconds west a distance of 26.00 feet; a line along the arc of a circle having a radius of 407.80 feet concave southerly and whose chord bears north 75 degrees 52 minutes 04 seconds west a distance of 85.51 feet a distance of westerly 85.67 feet; a line north 83 degrees 47 minutes 05 seconds west a distance of 164.45 feet; a line north 69 degrees 43 minutes 24 seconds west a distance of 25.16 feet; a line north 43 degrees 07 minutes 24 seconds west a distance of 31.91 feet to a point on the easterly dock line of the former South Branch of the Chicago River; a line south 46 degrees 47 minutes 47 seconds west along the easterly dock line of the former South Branch of the Chicago River a distance of 73.33 feet; a line south 89 degrees 54 minutes 55 seconds west a distance of 32.69 feet; a line south 49 degrees 36 minutes 35 seconds a distance of 46.38 feet; a line north 89 degrees 54 minutes 55 seconds east a distance of 296.25 feet; a line easterly along the arc of a circle having a radius of 375.00 feet concave southerly and whose chord bears south 78 degrees 32 minutes 39 seconds east a distance of 109.97 feet for a distance of 110.36 feet; a line south 69 degrees 46 minutes 04 seconds east a distance o f 136.90 feet; a line easterly along the arc of a circle having a radius of 391.00 feet concave northerly and whose chord bears south 79 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds east a distance of 135.64 feet for a distance of 136.33 feet; South Clark Street; vacated West 16″‘ Street; a line 155.40 feet west of and parallel to South Clark Street; the north line of vacated West 16″” Street; and the South Branch of the Chicago River Digitize that. Source: https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/05/29/everything-there-is-to-know-so-far-about-the-78-in-chicagos-south-loop/ https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/05/29/everything-th...
- rmc 8y ago
  Turning OSM into, essentially a view of local governments would remove the wiki aspect, where anyone can edit it. Additionally, there is enough problems getting the global OSM community to come up with one tagging scheme. If every country made their own stuff, it would not be one map.
  - endorphone 8y ago
    Of course it would remove the wiki aspect where a better, canonical source is available. For the same reason that my local library doesn't use a wiki library catalogue. That doesn't prevent the wiki aspect for non-canonical data. I hardly see tagging standardization as a big road block.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > It should be standardized No thank you. New York City doesn’t need a federal bureaucracy to be checked into every time a building goes up or a pipeline gets laid. And the level of detail which is necessary for New York would be overkill for rural counties; they have better things to spend their tax dollars on.
  - endorphone 8y ago
    A building going up or a pipeline getting laid necessitates an enormous amount of government activities. The idea of having a simple standardized output would be just too onerous is absolute nonsense. Further, saying that the detail necessary for NYC is overkill for a rural county is just bunk. Yes, of course NYC would have more detail. Do you think a rural county is going to be overloaded plotting their dozen streets? The whole "better things with tax dollars" bit is really the cherry on the top.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > * The idea of having a simple standardized output would be just too onerous is absolute nonsense* This complicated thing is already so complicated, it couldn’t possibly hurt to add even more complexity!
tomarr 8y ago
Where does this size argument arrive from because it comes up consistently on USA v elsewhere arguments? 95th percentile densities are no more than europe. The population of USA is more than 30x Finland and we are talking about laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent)
- cabaalis 8y ago
  The United States is comprised of literally thousands of sovereign, independent governments. There are even independent limits on what rules these governments can impose upon each other. It is not a "subordinate" type of situation. That's why the size argument comes into play so often. It's not really a landmass or even population argument as much as is it a complexity argument.
  - mark_edward 8y ago
    People like to say that, but in practice it's not true and hasn't been for over a century.
    - dvdhnt 8y ago
      Yep. As an example, higher level governments will attach stipulations to grants or other types of funding in order to “encourage” lower governments to do as they’d like them to. Our tax system is such that this almost always works.
    - BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
      I sadly agree that federalism is de facto dead as a framework of policy and ideology. But as a legal and bureaucratic infrastructure, it has quite refused to die, for better or for worse. City, county, and state governments still do their thing, and anybody dealing with property, construction, zoning, etc in any capacity will still need to negotiate through each of those layers separately.
    - robohamburger 8y ago
      I know building permits do seem to work like this in the US. There is probably a separate db (if its even a db) for each county. It is very much a data cleaning nightmare from my limited experience.
chiph 8y ago
> primarily stored at the county or equivalent level That's assuming there are any records at all. In states like Idaho and Montana, once you get out of the bigger cities I very much doubt there are permits on file for most dwellings. Partly because few people care, and partly because the land owners resent any sort of "big government" telling them what they can and cannot do.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by rcdmd 8y ago

endorphone 8y ago

It should be trivial. It should be standardized. It is absolutely bizarre that we need to rely upon commercial companies to map things like streets and buildings when this is very accurately tracked by government. In an ideal world OSM data grids could be delegated to the appropriate governments, where it could have perfect precision with changes, street closures, one ways, redirects, etc.

ISL 8y ago
There's a huge difference between tracking for building permits and opening an API to the world. As an example -- in Seattle, sewer lines are still denoted with "sewer cards", digital images of pencil drawings on hundred-year-old paper. It is sufficient for sewer records, but utterly insufficient for OSM.
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  In Washington State, nearly all of the counties provide daily or weekly data exports for lot lines, streets and more. OSM regularly imports this data, but if you go much outside Seattle and are using Google Maps, prepare for a rubbish experience, as Google hasn't bothered to source the data directly from the counties (thus there are many missing and incorrectly drawn roads in the San Juans) and they're relying on a 3rd party vendor that is running a few years behind on pulling county data. To put this in perspective, in Kitsap county alone they've renumbered nearly 300k lots over the past few years. Google Maps doesn't get those new addresses or road names until its trickled down through USPS (who they're required to notify) then eventually to their data vendor, leaving you with a spotty patchwork of places that Google users have updated to the correct addresses. Google had a good strategy with sourcing user contributions, but pulling the public domain data that is offered freely for download and is literally the canonical source isn't hard, a small team can manage it for OSM, why is Google paying a 3rd party vendor that gives them trash instead of the latest data?
  - aaronbrethorst 8y ago
    This explains why I’ve had such a miserable experience navigating the peninsula with Google turn by turn directions. Thank you for the context.
toast0 8y ago
This is sometimes accurately tracked by some government, but there are thousands of governments in this country. Getting thousands of organizations to a standard is pretty hard when they don't get a concrete benefit from it. At the same time, the federal government has no business knowing the shape of my buildings, thank you very much.
reaperducer 8y ago
It should be trivial. It should be standardized. Your use of the word "trivial" indicates you've never worked on complex GIS systems. Whether it should be standardized is a matter of debate. Currently, each county or state or municipality uses the software and standard that suits its needs, and more importantly -- it's budget. The GIS needs of New York City are not the same as the GIS needs of Saint George, Utah. Saint George doesn't need skyscraper functions, and New York doesn't want to measure airports on top of mesas. The real world is messy, and so is pretty much every single GIS deployment. The real world doesn't digitize well.
- oeh34thoens 8y ago
  Likewise, New York probably doesn't have the nuclear contamination that St. George, Utah does[0]! [0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%2C_Utah#Nuclear_contamination> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George%2C_Utah#Nuclear_con...
- endorphone 8y ago
  "Whether it should be standardized is a matter of debate." In the same way that vaccines are `debatable'. To export an accurate, up to date model of roads (and road data) and optionally building layouts should absolutely be the norm. Nor does a standardized export format necessitate using a single uniform GIS solution, of which I've had to inter-operate with a number. The real world digitizes spectacularly well, a lot of people just make poor choices and make excuses (or worse, buy nonsensical excuses) for not helping in getting there.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    The real world digitizes spectacularly well No, it doesn't. If it did, then the surveying industry would be out of business. Yet every time a building is permitted in the United States, surveys are done. Here's an example for a recent project surveyed in Chicago just this year: West Roosevelt Road; South Clark Street; a line beginning at a point 116 feet north of vacated West 16″‘ Street as measured along the west line of South Clark Street that is westerly 135.20 feet along the arc of a circle having a radius of 375.00 feet concave northerly and whose chord bears north 79 degrees 49 minutes 52 seconds west a distance of 135.20 feet; a line north 69 degrees 46 minutes 04 seconds west a distance of 101.85 feet; a line north 69 degrees 49 minutes 57 seconds west a distance of 26.00 feet; a line along the arc of a circle having a radius of 407.80 feet concave southerly and whose chord bears north 75 degrees 52 minutes 04 seconds west a distance of 85.51 feet a distance of westerly 85.67 feet; a line north 83 degrees 47 minutes 05 seconds west a distance of 164.45 feet; a line north 69 degrees 43 minutes 24 seconds west a distance of 25.16 feet; a line north 43 degrees 07 minutes 24 seconds west a distance of 31.91 feet to a point on the easterly dock line of the former South Branch of the Chicago River; a line south 46 degrees 47 minutes 47 seconds west along the easterly dock line of the former South Branch of the Chicago River a distance of 73.33 feet; a line south 89 degrees 54 minutes 55 seconds west a distance of 32.69 feet; a line south 49 degrees 36 minutes 35 seconds a distance of 46.38 feet; a line north 89 degrees 54 minutes 55 seconds east a distance of 296.25 feet; a line easterly along the arc of a circle having a radius of 375.00 feet concave southerly and whose chord bears south 78 degrees 32 minutes 39 seconds east a distance of 109.97 feet for a distance of 110.36 feet; a line south 69 degrees 46 minutes 04 seconds east a distance o f 136.90 feet; a line easterly along the arc of a circle having a radius of 391.00 feet concave northerly and whose chord bears south 79 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds east a distance of 135.64 feet for a distance of 136.33 feet; South Clark Street; vacated West 16″‘ Street; a line 155.40 feet west of and parallel to South Clark Street; the north line of vacated West 16″” Street; and the South Branch of the Chicago River Digitize that. Source: https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/05/29/everything-there-is-to-know-so-far-about-the-78-in-chicagos-south-loop/ https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2018/05/29/everything-th...
rmc 8y ago
Turning OSM into, essentially a view of local governments would remove the wiki aspect, where anyone can edit it. Additionally, there is enough problems getting the global OSM community to come up with one tagging scheme. If every country made their own stuff, it would not be one map.
- endorphone 8y ago
  Of course it would remove the wiki aspect where a better, canonical source is available. For the same reason that my local library doesn't use a wiki library catalogue. That doesn't prevent the wiki aspect for non-canonical data. I hardly see tagging standardization as a big road block.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> It should be standardized No thank you. New York City doesn’t need a federal bureaucracy to be checked into every time a building goes up or a pipeline gets laid. And the level of detail which is necessary for New York would be overkill for rural counties; they have better things to spend their tax dollars on.
- endorphone 8y ago
  A building going up or a pipeline getting laid necessitates an enormous amount of government activities. The idea of having a simple standardized output would be just too onerous is absolute nonsense. Further, saying that the detail necessary for NYC is overkill for a rural county is just bunk. Yes, of course NYC would have more detail. Do you think a rural county is going to be overloaded plotting their dozen streets? The whole "better things with tax dollars" bit is really the cherry on the top.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > * The idea of having a simple standardized output would be just too onerous is absolute nonsense* This complicated thing is already so complicated, it couldn’t possibly hurt to add even more complexity!

tomarr 8y ago

Where does this size argument arrive from because it comes up consistently on USA v elsewhere arguments? 95th percentile densities are no more than europe. The population of USA is more than 30x Finland and we are talking about laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent)

cabaalis 8y ago
The United States is comprised of literally thousands of sovereign, independent governments. There are even independent limits on what rules these governments can impose upon each other. It is not a "subordinate" type of situation. That's why the size argument comes into play so often. It's not really a landmass or even population argument as much as is it a complexity argument.
- mark_edward 8y ago
  People like to say that, but in practice it's not true and hasn't been for over a century.
  - dvdhnt 8y ago
    Yep. As an example, higher level governments will attach stipulations to grants or other types of funding in order to “encourage” lower governments to do as they’d like them to. Our tax system is such that this almost always works.
  - BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
    I sadly agree that federalism is de facto dead as a framework of policy and ideology. But as a legal and bureaucratic infrastructure, it has quite refused to die, for better or for worse. City, county, and state governments still do their thing, and anybody dealing with property, construction, zoning, etc in any capacity will still need to negotiate through each of those layers separately.
  - robohamburger 8y ago
    I know building permits do seem to work like this in the US. There is probably a separate db (if its even a db) for each county. It is very much a data cleaning nightmare from my limited experience.

chiph 8y ago

> primarily stored at the county or equivalent level That's assuming there are any records at all. In states like Idaho and Montana, once you get out of the bigger cities I very much doubt there are permits on file for most dwellings. Partly because few people care, and partly because the land owners resent any sort of "big government" telling them what they can and cannot do.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]