Who Are We?

We are the GIS / Mapping Department of Kendall County, Illinois, and this is our official OpenStreetMap account. The department is comprised of several individuals.

1. jcarlson
2. Meagan B
3. abobo264
4. saraihdez
5. bally213

Also the occasional intern.

Our Edits

Most of us prefer to map under our individual accounts. You may see this account when an edit falls within the scope of an authoritative data layer of the County, though.

What Are We Doing Here?

As the County’s GIS department, we are in a unique position to maintain or host a large amount of authoritative data. The vast majority of this, of course, is not compatible with OSM’s licensing, or would not be useful to include in OSM. But not all!

For the subset which is included in our Open Data, we feel compelled to contribute this data to OSM where it is missing, and to refine existing OSM data as we are able. Due to our work with other departments (highways, 911, zoning, &c) and timely aerial imagery, we are also well-positioned to update OSM data and resolve potential discrepancies quickly and authoritatively.

Why Are We Doing This?

For one thing, we believe in the value of open data and sharing what we’re permitted to share, and OSM stands out as one of the preeminent places to do so. There’s also the simple satisfaction of looking at OSM and seeing that, at least within the county boundaries, the data is (or will increasingly be, we hope), thorough and correct.

Of course, we recognize that there are benefits we derive from this. By engaging with the broader OSM community and reviewing our data against OSM, we may find OSM more up-to-date than our own in-house data, as active local mappers will necessarily know more about their respective localities than we might.

It’s Not Just Imports

For those of you who may be viewing our profile because you’re scrutinizing a changeset of ours, please know that we are not just “dumping” our data into OSM blindly. Every object we add or modify is reviewed individually against current imagery and existing OSM data for accuracy and consistency, to the extent we are able.

We are familiar with the community import guidelines, but do not consider our work on OSM to be an import. Rather, we are simply using available data to guide our edits to OSM, but are working in an “OSM-first” manner, as opposed to “add dataset X to OSM”.

Be In Touch

If you have any comments or questions for us regarding the work we’re doing here, please reach out here on OSM, or directly to our department email, kcgis@kendallcountyil.gov.

See you in the data.