Why Addresses Have Numbers
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Why Addresses Have Numbers
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Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#2Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#3Another page that gets "cute" with javascript and in turn is unreadable because of it. (not technically unreadable, but waiting for the test to appear gets in the way to reading to the point where it isn't worth your time).
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#4My house has a name, not a number, not that uncommon in the UK, especially for a 200-year-old building.
I think there’s a bit of false equivalence going on here as well regarding zip codes (several thousand addresses, or thereabouts) and a UK postcode (maybe 10-15 houses).
You could genuinely address a letter to me using something like:
4, L226ET
That’s all it would take. No, that’s not my address, characters within changed to protect the guilty, but my address could look just like that.
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#5The southeastern Wisconsin system takes the address idea further, the address grid is tied back to the Milwaukee grid. A local official gives the example W156 N8480: roughly 156 streets west of the origin and 84 blocks north. He specifically notes that you can use the address to determine whether you need to travel north, south, east, or west. Wisconsin's statewide NG9-1-1 standards even explicitly recognize these two-direction grid addresses, giving W180N8085 as an example.
That is, in a navigational sense, superior to ordinary street addressing.
Take something like N90 W17567. Once you understand the system, you already know approximately where the destination is: the road lies about 90 blocks north of the baseline, while the property is about 175.67 blocks west of the north-south baseline. The address is essentially a human-readable coordinate pair.
In other words, if someone gives you an address like N90 W17567, and you understand the grid, you immediately know roughly how far north and west the property is without having to look up the street or pull out a map.
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#6My house has a name, not a number, not that uncommon in the UK, especially for a 200-year-old building. I think there’s a bit of false equivalence going on here as well regarding zip codes (several thousand addresses, or thereabouts) and a UK postcode (maybe 10-15 houses). You could genuinely address a letter to me using something like: 4, L226ET That’s all it would take. No, that’s not my address, characters within…
Yes but you could not address a couple of places I have lived in in England like that.
First was a house in a small cul de sac – with no number just a name. Second was a flat – there are two number 1s in the same post code.
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#7My house has a name, not a number, not that uncommon in the UK, especially for a 200-year-old building. I think there’s a bit of false equivalence going on here as well regarding zip codes (several thousand addresses, or thereabouts) and a UK postcode (maybe 10-15 houses). You could genuinely address a letter to me using something like: 4, L226ET That’s all it would take. No, that’s not my address, characters within…
Yes but you could not address a couple of places I have lived in in England like that. First was a house in a small cul de sac – with no number just a name. Second was a flat – there are two number 1s in the same post code.
By all means, the variety in addressing is a constant software-developer trap. The above will cover the 99% case though. There are even buildings with multiple postcodes (DVLA is one such, I believe)
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#8The southeastern Wisconsin system takes the address idea further, the address grid is tied back to the Milwaukee grid. A local official gives the example W156 N8480: roughly 156 streets west of the origin and 84 blocks north. He specifically notes that you can use the address to determine whether you need to travel north, south, east, or west. Wisconsin's statewide NG9-1-1 standards even explicitly recognize these tw…
So every city you travel to you need to look up the baseline location? I'd rather houses and streets have numbers so I can determine how to get there just by looking at street signs.
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#9House numbering is surprisingly interesting and diverse! Europe does it differently from the Americas, but Colombia has its own method, and so does Germany. (Infuriatingly, you can find both German and European house numbering in Berlin.) Some cities assign two numbers to a building on a street corner, one number for each street; some don't. Then again, some places like Brasília or Naberezhnye Chelny don't use streets as the "scope" for house numbers at all, and adopt numeration by neighborhood that looks like it's intended for robots not humans -- I used to go to a bar in Brasília whose address was CLS 409 bloco A. And some countries don't care for house numbers at all, like Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I have a feeling that someone has to have a special interest in all that. Hell, maybe I should write a blog post.
Re: Why Addresses Have Numbers
#10My house has a name, not a number, not that uncommon in the UK, especially for a 200-year-old building. I think there’s a bit of false equivalence going on here as well regarding zip codes (several thousand addresses, or thereabouts) and a UK postcode (maybe 10-15 houses). You could genuinely address a letter to me using something like: 4, L226ET That’s all it would take. No, that’s not my address, characters within…
Am in Canada where postal codes are somewhat street name-dependent even when that doesn't strictly make sense. Through a quirk of history, my corner house's address is on the otherwise vacant side street instead of on the main thoroughfare... the result being a unique postal code for our house, and 3 letters and 3 numbers would likely deliver mail to my house with no other information at all. I haven't tried it yet but I want to, just to see.