Populate buildings polygons with address from TIGER address range

Question

We have OSM shapefile of buildings polygons connected to OSM shpaefile of roads. And then from TIGER we have their well known address range table connected to roads again.

So via roads we can connect between buildings polygons (OSM) & address ranges (TIGER). {All this because in TIGER we don't have shapefile of buildings polygons}.

Now, Is it good idea to automatically assign each polygon with an address? For example If we have range of 17, and there are 17 polygons - With the direction data - Isn't it should be a trivial task? Is it true for any case of matched number of polygons and numbers in the range?

Answer 1

This won't work reliably.

It won't work if TIGER and OSM data are from different dates which is usually the case. TIGER is only updated once in a while. In contrast, OSM is updated continuously however the up-to-dateness depends heavily on the area.

It won't work if TIGER and OSM have a different view of the data. According to your description TIGER has an address for each building. OSM may have a polygon for each building plus a polygon for each garage. OSM might combine two buildings together into one polygon (e.g. if the buildings are next to each other). OSM might separate one building into two polygons (e.g. if the building looks like two buildings). Even if the numbers in TIGER and OSM match there is no guarantee that the actual addresses and polygons are matching, too.

There are several solutions:

• Use address data from OSM
• Import TIGER address data into a geocoder and perform a geocoding query for each OSM building. This will assign the nearest TIGER address to each OSM building but will require lots of resources.