I have decided that adding every single address including apartment and building numbers to OSM in Shanghai is not a realistic short-term (or maybe even medium-term) goal.

The good news is, a lot of Shanghai is divided neatly into neighbourhoods (小区, xiăoqū), and once you arrive at one of these neighbourhoods it’s relatively trivial to find the exact house.

An example of one of these neighbourhoods: osm.org/way/1074383316

Therefore, a realistic goal to make routing relatively usable for the general public is to add all of the neighbourhood names, and the lanes that run through the neighbourhoods. Then when the user arrives at the neighbourhood gates he can follow the signs to the right building or ask the security guard (there’s always a security guard).