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.
The simplest scheme is to resolve conflicts in this order:
1. If a postal area or CDP (Census Designated Place as found on the Census Tract Maps) and a city conflict, append something to the city name, since CDPs and Postal areas don’t have any other common appellation.
2. If a well-known city and a lesser-known city conflict, the most well-known keeps the unadorned name.
3. If all else is equal, choose one to keep the original name, and add the minimum clear suffix to alter the others.