Adding to the Maine portion of the discussion, here’s my take on the most prominent municipalities.
The three major urban centers of the state, Portland, Bangor, and Lewiston-Auburn are all shoe ins. Though Auburn is not a certainty, as one could argue that Lewiston is a little more prominent given its larger population, hospitals, Bates College, and unfortunately a bit better known due to the shootings. At the same, they both share the same urban center core, separated only by the river. One could argue that including one but not the other as a city would be like separating conjoined twins. It doesn’t really break anything to include both as a city so I’m leaning yes to Auburn being a city.
Then the regional cities. Biddeford, Saco, and Sanford in southern Maine, Brunswick (technically a town), Augusta, and Waterville further up. I will include Presque Isle way up in Aroostook County as well. Some of these areas may not be too far from Portland with the advent of the Maine Turnpike, but all of them have mostly separate economies and residents would probably be, at best, displeased if you called them a suburb of another city. Biddeford, Saco, Sanford, Brunswick, and Waterville all originally developed around the ample water power available and became bustling centers of industry, while Augusta is the state capital. Presque Isle, though less than 10,000 residents, is the largest city in Aroostook County/Northern Maine and home to a public university and a commercial airport.
It’s a little tricky with Saco, Biddeford, and Sanford because they’re all relatively close to each other so there might be some concerns of ‘crowding.’ But they are all relatively equal in stature so we couldn’t really just pick one as a city to represent the area. I am neutral to slightly in favor as to whether or not they should be cities. Having Portsmouth, Dover, and Rochester, NH as cities gives ammo to the case of these being cities, but one could just as easily make a case that these don’t rise to the level of importance required of a city.
Brunswick is an important area economically, the gateway to the Maine coast and home to Bowdoin College. Formerly home to an air force base and right down the road from Bath, the center of the Maine ship building industry. Nevertheless, it is a town by incorporation. I am neutral to slightly in favor of it being a city. Proximity to Lewiston-Auburn and Portland could be used in an argument against being a city.
August: state capital so it rises to the level of importance to be a city.
Waterville: probably the second easiest regional population center to justify as a city given that it’s a little more isolated. Nevertheless, it’s the second smallest population on my list.
Presque Isle: By some measures, this passes the test with flying colors: economic and cultural center and largest population center in the northern part of the state. Nearly two and a half hours to a larger city in Maine, though there is a larger Canadian city an hour and 15 minutes away. Anecdotally, this part of the state is so far out there that I’ve never visited despite being a Mainer for over 20 years. However, the factor going against it is that it’s starting to become a stretch calling it an urban area at all given its sub-10k population. I’m going to remain neutral until hearing more perspectives.
If we were just making a map of Maine, I think most would absolutely include all of these as cities as having the largest font. However, being part of the broader framework of OSM, it gets a little trickier. I think that including the regional Maine cities as OSM cities will allow us to spread out the usage of the hierarchies giving a more nuanced picture of the state on OSM. Just having four cities and lumping all of the other regional cities in with the smaller towns could be cause for confusion. I will be interested to see what happens to the regional cities of New Hampshire and Vermont because these states are most comparable to Maine. I think if most of the regional cities remain as cities there, then they should probably remain cities in Maine too.