OpenGeofiction
I was looking around and it seems that there may be little emphasis on municipal boundaries on OGF. Is this due to the constant nature of being incomplete or is just lack of interest? Is local government something that is not part of OGF?
I have mapped a few with the intent on altering the boundaries as the community expands or even contracts. I have taken in several factors and they have all presented their own character as to the boundaries have been drawn. Some were mapped with my entry level skill growing to a more novice level.
One example in taking in several factors to boundaries lies with the Town of Lakesite Villages. The town name was even factored into this one. I will give an example of how the boundaries which itself is a work in progress and will change as I look at which parcels should not be within the boundaries of the town.
The town was formed as sort of a resistance to forced annexation from the City of Belleville. Belleville came across the Grand Lake shores and onto land on the opposite side of the lake annexing a parcel of land into the city on Farwood Road. The residents of the then unincorporated areas decided to take action and form a municipality of their own to stop the expansion of the Belleville city limits and it’s high tax burdens. The name could not be agreed upon as each lake finger had a subdivision or community name of it’s own. Since there was no consensus as to which name to take they agreed upon Lakesite Villages. The name coming from the number of lake site homes and the amalgamation of the various communities or “villages” though not actual villages as incorporated communities.
The residents drew the boundaries to stop the influx of the City of Belleville but also to allow those that were adamant from not becoming a part of the town. Hence there are several enclaves or doughnut holes also called islands. Further annexation measures were taken as to also stop the influx from the town to the south, Sheffield Court House.
The boundaries are a work in progress as I am deannexing some parcels to be more realistic to the situation which does in fact have some real world parallels. With the project you will see that one subdivision may have been annexed into the town avoiding other parcels of land to get to the subdivision whilst trying to have some continuity of the limits as to not have parts of the town that are not connected no matter how convoluted.
I do realize that this is a somewhat large area without much mapped but if you take the issue into consideration you will understand that the parcels are large and there are large homes and open space in the town limits. I am working on mapping some additional infrastructure. I am sort putting the cart before the horse on this one I know.
Discussion
Comment from martinum4 on 6 July 2017 at 05:51
Have a look around http://opengeofiction.net/relation/59777 I mapped down to admin_level 10, which is suburbs. Administrative Boundaries aren’t that hard if you’re using the right tool (e.g. JOSM). Also I’d recommend writing out stuff like “Road” (Instead of “Rd”) and using normal Capitalisation instead of Capslock, it should help nominatim (the name based search engine) to find things more properly.
Kind regards
Martin
Comment from Myrcia on 6 July 2017 at 08:49
I’ve been working on boundaries in Myrcia as I go along. I think most developed countries have some form of administrative boundary, just not in Commonia as that is the sandbox for new users more than anything.
http://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/File:Myrciaboundarieswip.png
Comment from Thunderbird on 6 July 2017 at 14:39
Really well done! The parcels not part of the municipality are very realistic.
As far as my mapping goes, Jefferson follows the model of real world Pennsylvania, where every place is incorporated into a municipality, with different types such as a Township, Borough, or City.
I have been mapping the municipality lines as I go, but since I prefer to work on one area at a time, there are still very few of them to speak of. On the Patriot City/Gundock border there is a finished municipality line mapped.
Comment from No Way on 7 July 2017 at 17:31
@Thunderbird. Thanks I am really looking into parcels on this project in so far as the town boundary lines are concerned. I am aware of the Pennsylvania model or way of doing business and I am staying away from the higher tax burdens usually associated with full incorporation.
I do have townships mapped into one county, Wilson County. The system is in place in that county only due to the way the county was formed out of other counties. The model is based after Missouri in that Missouri has an optional township level government that is only used in certain counties. I believe that Illinois has a similar model as well but Illinois is about bankrupt so that would be the last state to model after.
Comment from No Way on 7 July 2017 at 17:32
One other thing the relation area tool does far more justice for showing the boundaries.
http://tile.opengeofiction.net/util/relation_area.html?map=12/29.97027/160.13445&q=72730
Comment from Thunderbird on 7 July 2017 at 17:49
Interesting. I didn’t know about the relation area tool.
My reason for using the Pennsylvania model is familiarity, the more rural municipalities may not provide many local services to avoid duplication. My country has a slight divide on the issue of taxation, with people in the city wanting some amount of taxation and government services while rural folks voting for little to no government.
The country as a whole has lower taxes than a real world America, and is currently moving in the direction of less government. But at the moment there are still many services provided by the government, especially most roads.
Comment from Portopolis on 7 July 2017 at 22:54
For me, I am doing prefectural and city level government. My prefectures are more like states but smaller, my entire country is divided into cities and towns that provide services. In certain cases if their is a group of small towns they might get grouped into a sub-prefectural municipality to be able to provide services but this would only be possible if a town has less than 10,000 people and very few areas are so uninhabited that the town will have less than 10,000 people. In cases like this the town would normally cover at least 100 square miles.
In the Marie City greater area, I have made population revolve around were people live. As Marie City is as expensive as a city in first world countries, but most of the country is closer to Eastern Europe and Southern South America levels of development which is on the border of developed. It is too expensive for the majority of people to live in. So to make this “first-world” city affordable for even the upper middle class people of the country, apartments are built everywhere leading to high density and those that want houses with a bit more space the city has sprawled heavily into Gyozo Prefecture as well as Uyo and Hie prefectures to lesser effect. This allows for lower density sprawl but high poverty in Gyozo Prefecture suburbs of Marie City, and their is also significantly less cars as the poor and even middle class in my country are unlikely to own a vehicle and instead walk and use public transport. Hanto Prefecture and too the lesser extent Chikyo Prefecture outside of the city is built more for the wealthy. It has higher taxes and many planned communities called Nyutauns. Of course for realism their are poor areas in both Chikyo/Hanto and wealthier areas in Gyozo Prefecture.