Do we not use city name when geocoding anymore?

Discussion created by jtcolber_IU on May 27, 2014
Latest reply on May 27, 2014 by timw1984dev

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I'm researching alternative methods of geocoding (our current data provider jacked up their prices) and have noticed that both TIGER and one other large commercial GIS data-providing company's data do not have city names as attributes of their street layers. I've always used city names in my geocoding as I think it nicely provides one more clue for messy addresses but am wondering if the geocoding world has passed me by and eschewed the use of city names.

Any insight is appreciated.

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7 Replies

timw1984dev May 27, 2014 10:20 AM
Hey Jay,

I know that my dispatchers would kill me if I removed city names :) . If you only use data within one city then you don't need it. But if you have repeating street names in different cities, then it is crucial.

Let's say a 911 call comes in as 100 Main St, and you have 6 different Main St because each city has one of those, then we would be in trouble.

The only reason I could see not having a city field is maybe if you have a zipcode field?

Just my two cents,

Tim
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heresme May 27, 2014 10:22 AM
Have you checked to see if the city name does not appear in a related table? My datasets have coded values in the main feature class and lookup tables to find actual names, the database has essentially been normalised. This is standard practise in databases but esri have overlooked that fact as using joined tables or domains do not work when building address locators. I have had to write a script to de-normalise my database because of this, it's very frustrating and you will get no help from esri.
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jtcolber_IU May 27, 2014 11:06 AM
The commercial data does (and perhaps TIGER does too) have a lookup to city names but only for incorporated areas so the boonies still have no city name. The reference data does have ZIP Codes but it still seems important to me to have city name as well because it seems that people often give erroneous ZIP Codes and sometimes a city will help sort it out.
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timw1984dev May 27, 2014 11:20 AM
Jay,

what state are you living in? Sometimes states have their own data that you can use.

Tim
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jtcolber_IU May 27, 2014 11:23 AM
Indiana. I've been looking at our free state-level sources and they have their own issues too.
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dewright_ca May 27, 2014 11:57 AM
Hey Jay,

I know that my dispatchers would kill me if I removed city names :) . If you only use data within one city then you don't need it. But if you have repeating street names in different cities, then it is crucial.

Let's say a 911 call comes in as 100 Main St, and you have 6 different Main St because each city has one of those, then we would be in trouble.

The only reason I could see not having a city field is maybe if you have a zipcode field?

Just my two cents,

Tim

Great thought, but in WA I have a Zipcode that straddles 2 cities both with the same street-name and address ranges; so the use of the City/PA_Name was critical in closing that gap.

I find that the more data you have to use to build the geocode string the better quality you can have.

Just my 2-cents
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timw1984dev May 27, 2014 12:28 PM
Great thought, but in WA I have a Zipcode that straddles 2 cities both with the same street-name and address ranges; so the use of the City/PA_Name was critical in closing that gap.

I find that the more data you have to use to build the geocode string the better quality you can have.

Just my 2-cents

David,

you're right some cities share the same zipcode, I don't think there is a way getting around city names.

Tim
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Do we not use city name when geocoding anymore?

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