I'm reviving this little abandoned project. After thinking about Kent's and Jon's comments from a year ago, something clicked. This is really a guidance page, not a policy page. We need to give enough information to help the uninitiated work their way through the problem, but the long explanation made the structure of the flow difficult to follow.

So....

I clarified the language. Rather than making it very terse, I added a bolded summary to each of the options. I also combined from three into two, with the last one being the catchall for what to do if nothing "normal" works.

I'd like to take the Examples section and do something different as well. The examples as given implement a solution. I'd like to see the examples at top at most illustrate the problem clearly. Don't give solutions until explaining the process.

While I would keep the Pennsylvania solution in there, I would not want to specifically use the name of the state, because this is not a state page. It can be in the mix for solutions.

Hmm, that paragraph was not intended to say "eliminate all CDP and postal names." only those that did not match real names in common use. Does that conflict with MD rules?

The guidance on using business addresses is not universal, I will change that to something more general or remove it.

Some context:

There are two uses for the city field: labeling and addressing.

The labeling is for the city polygons. This affects the ability to set a segment/place to an existing segment name (the "too far" problem); the display of the polygons in WME; and the placement (buggy!) of city names in the app's map display.

The addressing is just that - address lookup that specifies a city name will cause Waze searches to try to limit the results to those matching the city name.

We've had several local discussions in the Northeast about both. For addressing, we came to the realization that it doesn't matter much. Waze is insufficient for addressing, most results are from Google. Waze has no support for multiple city names or common spelling variants. For addressing, getting the correct city name is really icing.

For labeling, if we get it wrong, the map actually appears wrong, and editors may be a bit constrained.

I believe the above is generally true everywhere, it is not tied to definitions or assumptions about CDPs, postal names, official names, or anything else. The remainder of this post may depend on whether a particular state/region is densely incorporated or not, and how the Census Bureau operates in the area.

Many CDPs really are not used; many are. The CDP was developed by the Census office for their convenience in administering and reporting their activities and data. They use them for unincorporated areas (a good thing for mapping), incorpoarated areas that they do not recognize as incorporated (bad), and sometimes to break up or consolidate municipalities (bad).

When choosing a name for a CDP, they do in fact try to use a name that is already in use locally - but the boundaries may differ from local "boundaries" for that unofficial name, where such boundaries are readily identifiable at all. The Census Bureau is primarily looking to create units of 500 people or more, to avoid units over about 2,500 people, and to make any tract be somewhat homogeneous (i.e., not a mix of farmland and high-rise development.

As a result, while a CDP is likely to use a name recognized by locals, it may not be the name by which the place is primarily known, may leave out some areas that are known by that name, and may apply the name to adjacent areas that locals would not consider appropriate. All the above are quite common.

Now, how does that drive our discussion about conflicts? If a CDP is real and important, then it carries the similar weight as a real city name. But in other cases - probably the majority - why would we favor a weak CDP against a real city name?

You are correct that the latter paragraph this is subjective, and may also be state-specific. But it holds true in many areas, and the current language may suit Maryland, but it doesn't necessarily work well elsewhere.

I didn't say majority. I said many are, many are not.

Either of those two could be Town of Queen Anne. Why is the CDP impossible to call a "town?" The WP entry you linked to actually references it as such. I'm not saying it should be so, but theoretically, why not? Has anyone confirmed that it is NOT made up partially or wholly of the surrounding incorporated places, such as Davidsonville, Bowie? Has anyone considered using the last or current official name of Hardesty? And there's always the PA-style hack of Queen Anne, Prince George's County.

Again, that's all theoretical. If we were starting from scratch, I'd include other considerations, because the whole workflow is a guideline, and there are nuances and sometimes special circumstances.

In the case of Queen Anne, it is probably well known by 1280 residents plus some people in immediately surrounding communities. Real? Yes. Important? Maybe. In the relative scheme of things, the CDP has a larger population than the incorporated town, and is physically 65 times its size. That does give the CDP much relative weight. And road signs say Queen Anne, so it is more-than-real: there's some government agency (besides the USCB) that gives sanction to the name. Does all that overwhelm the fact that it the other place is the only one that is an official municipality of Queen Anne? I'd say yes, and leave the existing resolution in place.

But that doesn't mean we should write a guideline that explicitly pushes CDPs (unofficial names), over municipalities (official names), where the CDP is "not real" or "relatively unimportant." Where it makes sense to choose the CDP, the workflow allows for it, as in the Queen Anne case. Otherwise, it seems like a series of questionable assumptions.

Cutting out all nuances and details, the proposal is basically to favor official names over unofficial names where all else is equal. CDPs are not official names.

And the existing guideline does NOT match the quote above it. It fits Queen Anne. But if the incorporated Queen Anne was larger and more populous, then the proposal would be to try to find a way to change the "Hardesty" one.

The current guideline also does not match what we do in the Northeast.

Which I'm saying is wrong, at least for areas I'm active in.

jondrush wrote:I've stated this before, In PA there are CDPs that would be recognized by no-one who is alive today, and there are CDPs that have completely supplanted the municipal name, to the point where if you use the municipal name, people look at you funny. As with alleys, there can be no nationwide policy on city names that fits all local situations.

Then do we scrap the content? Because what you just said sounds like "all resolution must be based on local policy, which may be set at the regional level, state level, or lower." The existing content does attempt to be countrywide, which you are saying it cannot be, and does have a particular point of view, which seems aligned to PA and MD.

Yes, but incorrect. Read it like you don't already know it. Editors are going to take inappropriate guidance from it, because it DOES give direction.

Using county names in states where that is not an approved method. Favoring CDP naming, which is also not preferred in my area.

CDP is favored by stating that you can't really use a modified CDP name, but it may be possible to modify a city name. It gives a preference of leaving the CDP as-is. That's somewhat counter-intuitive.