Whilst doing my current routine of validating mapped areas, I came across what is potentially a significant time save. The mapper(s) had drawn an area around a large group of houses and labelled it as a “residential area”, instead of what I and I imagine many others currently do of mapping individual buildings.

This seems like a humongous time save in areas where the details of buildings (e.g. their name) are unknown. But I do have a feeling that ultimately one would want to map each building, as it would be helpful to know where the nearest hospital is, for example, rather than having to scour the area in an emergency.

A compromise could be to map unknown areas with these all-encompassing residential area squares, whilst filling in individual details for known buildings. I know that busy areas such as London and New York are already mapped out in great detail, so I can only assume that the time save I am proposing would just be the first step in mapping an area. If the idea is acceptable, I would then assume the idea would be used in the initial mapping stage, and that validators would fill in the details. That is, unless there is another step after the validation stage that I am unaware of (I am currently only an intermediate mapper and cannot validate all maps). I could also see the details being filled in during further iterations of the mapping process, such as when extra data on an area is gathered.