title: How can I use Python & OSM to get a list of what's near me?
body: <p>I'm not really interested in generating tiles if I can help it.  Instead, what I'm looking for is a means of getting <em>"what is near me"</em> kind of information, specifically bodies of water and green space, or even civil services.</p>
  
  <p>If I had the map tiles, I suppose I could parse them for the colours I want, but I'm thinking that there must be a better/smarter way.  Isn't is possible to get a list of objects near <code>lat,lng</code> that belong to categories <code>A</code> and <code>B</code>?</p>
  
  <p>I'm a competent Python programmer, but am completely new to OSM.  I understand that I can download a Very Large XML file and <em>have all the data</em>, but accessing it, especially for this sort of purpose is totally foreign to me.</p>
  
  <p>I should however that I have at my disposal complete access to a PostgreSQL database complete with PostGIS in a GeoDjango setup.</p>