This, by Ré Dubhthaigh of Dublin City Council, is a wonderfully clear description of why data about place is probably not what you have in your head (it’s just addresses, right?), and why sense making from messy data over time is not an annoyance that technology should aim to do away with, it is the work.
Describing Dublin — data challenges of a changing city
As Ré says ….
Our job is to support real services, so we don’t have the option to start from scratch. We have to deal with all of the messiness that comes with 800+ years of a city growing and changing, while remembering it will continue to evolve in the future.