So, Dear Diary, 2021-05-11

I have decided to take on the task of tracing every building in the town where I live, population about 60,000. Currently the coverage of traced buildings are large retail, large industrial, or the hospital. Almost no houses are mapped, and most of the roads are bare minimum information with no cycleway or footway information.

This comes after my previous task, as I have just finished basic tracing and labelling of the local amusement park, which was almost barren (and due to the “roller coaster track” tag not rendering, it still look barren!).

I do plan on trying to get out a bit and visit some of the places, however the area is very sketchy. Since living here there have been a few drive by shootings, and many places are know as “The Stablands” with how much knife crime goes on…. I feel I will get chased out of some areas for wearing a surveying Hi-Vis, and arrested by the police if I don’t wear one!

I am massively impressed so far with the depth of the Wiki, the ease of use of the ID editor, the wide toolset JOSM has to offer, and the incredibly smooth function of StreetComplete (Quite how it hasn’t had 1mil+ downloads is beyond me!)

For now, the Armchair awaits, though mapping some of the clearly inaccurate foot “trails” around the area could be a nice break, and lower the risk of a shankin’