Better Scheme for Removing Duplication
As long as the city name differs by one character, you will not get the error message. But we don’t recommend kludgey fixes. The best way to clear duplication is to find something unique, but accurate, that identifies a municipality.
- Examples
- If a borough and a township share the same name, rename the township segments to read Foocity Twp.
- In Pennsylvania, we have several instances of three or more townships sharing the same name. So we append the county name to the township name, Foocity, Countyname, since that is how they are uniquely identified to the state government.
You may use the following workflow to resolve conflicts as follows:
- Eliminate false names. Determine whether the name is actually in use - for example, Waze has imported many village names, neighborhood names, and CDPs (see note below) that are not typically used for addressing. Change them to the name of the surrounding municipality. Local business addresses are a strong indicator. If this resolves the conflicts, you do no need to follow the remaining steps. Note: A CDP is a Census Designated Place as found on the Census Tract Maps.
- Use the qualified version of a city name if appropriate. For example, you may append Twp (short for Township) or City if the municipality has that in its name. Do not add a suffix arbitrarily though; you can't call a place Twp unless it really is a township. (Normally, we take such appellations out of a city name, but they may be added back to resolve a conflict.) If one of the cities is especially prominent, give preference to using the base name for that city, and find another way to differentiate the less-well-known one. In some states, it is always acceptable to use the county name as a qualifier for this purpose.
- When all else fails You should contact your State Manager or Regional Coordinator for guidance. You may be able to an exception that allows a duplicate city, or the SM/RC may want you to choose a particular solution, such as an arbitrary (but preferentially meaningful) qualifier such as county name, compass direction, or locally-used qualifier. In such cases, you may choose the most prominent place to keep the original name or you may wish to qualify all names if none is especially prominent.