NEW TNMCorps Lightning Challenge for City / Town Halls in Ohio & Michigan!

As you can see from the map, much work has already been done. However, there are still points that need to be reviewed as well as several municipalities that don’t yet have a point within their boundaries. Please help us fill in the gaps!

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What does each point color mean?   

These colors are part of our tiered editing process and signal to other editors that a point has passed through the upper tiers and does not need to be edited again. Our November 2018 newsletter has an article titled Editor Roles and Point Colors that describes this process further. 

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Remaining Communities  

If you’ve been following us since we first launched city halls as a feature type, you may recall that Ohio and Michigan were some of the earlier states to have their own designated challenge. You may also recall that, as city halls have progressed, we started providing volunteers with tips on remaining communities towards the end of each challenge. However, these tips didn’t become common until later in the game, so many of these earlier challenges did not receive what we’ve since coined an overlay or “spatial analysis.” Therefore, we’re kicking off this challenge with such an overlay. 

This overlay is a comparison between US Census’s Incorporated Places dataset and all the city / town hall features collected to date. The results help us identify communities that do not yet have a city / town hall point within their corporate boundaries. We’ve limited the results to communities with a population greater than 2,000 since larger communities are more likely to have their own designated city hall. The map below highlights communities that may still need to have a city / town hall point collected. 

NOTE that this does not mean every one of these communities is missing a point.  It is possible that some of these communities do not have a building that fits our definition of a city / town hall while others may have already been collected but their city / town hall falls outside their corporate boundary.   

Please help us research these communities and determine if a city / town hall exists!  

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Tips and tricks for this challenge:

Local Government: Incorporated vs. Unincorporated 

1. Local governments in Michigan and Ohio consist of cities, villages, and townships.  
2. In both states, cities and villages are incorporated while townships are not. 
   • Note that Michigan's legislature differentiates between general law townships and charter townships. Charter townships have slightly more governing authorities than general law townships and therefore may be more likely to have their own designated structure.
   • Townships with a larger population may also have their own designated structure. 
   • The US Census categorizes both charter townships and general law townships as minor civil divisions.
   • Alas, don't forget to check for designated structures among townships, too!
3. The Cities vs. Towns vs. Villages article in our September 2019 newsletter for the different types of governing bodies and how to determine if a point should be collected. 

Possible Sources 

Remember to confirm items in a list with an authoritative source (e.g., the city or village’s website) before updating the map.  See the How to Spot an Authoritative (Re)Source article in our November 2017 newsletter for why this is important.   

• The United States Census Bureau has downloadable lists of all the incorporated places in each state by population. Here are the lists for Michigan and Ohio.  
• Wikipedia also has lists of cities for Michigan and Ohio. 
• Michigan’s state website maintains a list of cities, townships, and villages.  
  • Note that this list also includes Census Designated Places which typically fall under county government and therefore are not likely to have a city/town hall.   
• The Michigan Municipal League has a directory of members and websites.  
• The Michigan Townships Association also allows users to search for townships by county. 
• Ohio’s state website has a list of officials and addresses for cities, villages, and townships.  
  • Before creating a point and/or entering an address, check to make sure the address is not for a private residence. This is especially true for smaller communities.  
• The Ohio Municipal League has a PDF listing municipalities in Ohio.  

Smaller communities may not always have their own website and instead may use Facebook or other social media platforms for their virtual communications. See the newsletter article titled Social Media as an Authoritative Source (July 2020) for tips on using social media to update points.  

Proper Point Placement 

Our November 2018 newsletter includes an article on aerial interpretation for city/town hall structures. This article walks you through how to identify which building to place a point on when examining aerial imagery. 

Interested in collecting city/town halls elsewhere? 

Our volunteers are AWESOME and have helped us to compile a dataset of these features throughout the entire U.S., so most of the city/town halls have already been collected. However, as noted above, not all states have had a spatial analysis, so we plan to revisit some of the earlier states (i.e., Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, etc.) to make sure all eligible features have been collected.  Note that only city/town halls in Ohio and Michigan will count towards this challenge.   

If you have any questions during the mapping process, reach out to us at nationalmapcorps@usgs.gov and we’ll be happy to assist!  Thank you for all that you do, and happy mapping!