Residential landuse and multipolygons

Currently residential landuse for towns/cities etc. seems to be drawn over the top polygon in it’s own right. For cities where this hasn’t been done, is it reasonable to create a multipolygon and use existing ways (where appropriate) to mark the edge of the city?

I see the advantage of using a multipolygon is that it reduces the number of extra/duplicated/parallel ways that need to be drawn etc. The disadvangtes are adding new bits to the relation might be a bit of a pain and there’s the potential to accidentally break things when remodelling areas.

Using a multipolygon appears to render ok, I’ve tried it for a small area where I map - http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.4452&lon=-2.4609&zoom=13&layers=B000FTF . Using this approach does mean you have to split things like roundabouts that fall on the perimiter.

Before I “go crazy” and mark the boundaries of Bristol, Bath etc. I was wondering if there was a “correct” method.

I think that most people and certainly every import will use separate polygons for landuse. As you say, it can become quite a mess when you need to split up all kinds of features to get the multipolygon complete or when you want to edit the polygon you’d have much trouble to get the different items untangled. But either method is not wrong, one can only have a preference for one of the other. Just as a thought: it is no big deal to have another line show up in your editor then to untangle stuff.

I think you’re right, it’s easier to draw a separate polygon. I’ll do that.

Cheers!