That a building|property will have only one address.
Sometimes (eg: rural Australia) property addresses are updated from an older numbered lot based system (that goes astray when properties are subdivided and infill houses appear) to a system that numbers houses by driveway distance from last major intersection.
For five or ten years a house can be recieving mail or be on the records with both the old and the new address.
I think this idea that a building/property can have more than one address can happen in the United States too. The way I see it, it is because a ZIP code can be associated with a list of cities that are categorized as “recommended city name”, “other city names recognized for addresses in this zip code” and “city names to avoid”. [1]
So as an example, if you use the UPSP Cities by ZIP Code to research 77005 and you would see that they recommend using the city name of “Houston” for mail, but they would also recognize “West University Place”. There’s also a city called “Southside Place” which should be avoided when it comes to sending mail. But then that kind of makes me think that if a house is within the limits of one or these small cities, then it could in theory have the same street name but have two different city values in different databases.
Then on the other hand there’s a somewhat related problem where a small town or village (e.g. Somers, WI and Scotland, CT) can have multiple ZIP codes and that ends up causing a lot of headaches for the residents of the town since they all might live nearby but then each section of the town might end up associated with some other larger city it’s closest to.
It also happens in places where a house/building spans two streets, and gets an address on both. Same reason some buildings get multiple numbers on the same street (happens a lot if they want to keep the option to later split entrances and give them numbers for instance)
I used to be a EMS call taker/dispatch (911) in Ontario, Canada. Addresses could be such a pain, especially in the the more rural areas. There were multiple townships around some bigger cities. They had different naming schemes and suffered from a similar problem that you mentioned. Many of the addresses also had old addresses. Our system would luckily often have both versions of the address stored, but not always. Additionally a lot of our roads have both numbers to address them by, such as "Regional Road 12", but then they'd also have an actual name. Almost every went by the actual name, however in the rural areas sometimes they had old real names, but it never was "official" so it isn't even listed.
Overall addresses are such a mess, and they are a mess even for governmental agencies like this one.
I don’t know how they came to be, but in rural America I have seen houses which have signs very explicitly saying that two or more addresses are all this one house, so please deliver anything addressed to any of them.
The building in that example does have only one address. The old address is not valid any more. People just accept the erroneous use of the old address for the sake of expediency.
Besides that, in Buenos Aires, for instance, every access to the street has its own address. A building with 2 entrances (front door and garage) has 2 addresses, etc.
Where I currently live, my street has no name, my house has no number. If a package is delivered by mail, my phone number needs to be put on the package, and the local delivery operator calls me to either pick it up, or I send my location through telegram and they deliver it to my house.
It’s almost entirely impossible to order through Amazon et al using this type of system, it’s just not supported at all.
The same goes for my country or origin (in EU), they require my address in order to be able to send important mail. It’s just not possible because of the computer systems not accepting anything without a zipcode, address and house number.
What's preventing some local authority from just naming your street?
And what's preventing you and your neighbors from having a meeting, agreeing on a numbering convention, and putting street numbers on your house? I guess it would be a bit silly/meaningless if you don't have your street name.
A unique characteristic of Carmel-by-the-Sea is that there are no street addresses. Properties are identified, for example, as being on the "west side of San Antonio Street, 3 houses south of 12th Avenue". In addition to this, many owners give their homes a name. The name you choose does not have to be approved or registered with the City.
Why don’t you name your road and assign a house number? Either just make it up, or to make it more official contact your local government and propose a name and numbering scheme for it.
> From where the Chinese restaurant used to be, two blocks down, half a block toward the lake, next door to the house where the yellow car is parked, Managua, Nicaragua
defrost|10 months ago
That a building|property will have only one address.
Sometimes (eg: rural Australia) property addresses are updated from an older numbered lot based system (that goes astray when properties are subdivided and infill houses appear) to a system that numbers houses by driveway distance from last major intersection.
For five or ten years a house can be recieving mail or be on the records with both the old and the new address.
layman51|10 months ago
So as an example, if you use the UPSP Cities by ZIP Code to research 77005 and you would see that they recommend using the city name of “Houston” for mail, but they would also recognize “West University Place”. There’s also a city called “Southside Place” which should be avoided when it comes to sending mail. But then that kind of makes me think that if a house is within the limits of one or these small cities, then it could in theory have the same street name but have two different city values in different databases.
Then on the other hand there’s a somewhat related problem where a small town or village (e.g. Somers, WI and Scotland, CT) can have multiple ZIP codes and that ends up causing a lot of headaches for the residents of the town since they all might live nearby but then each section of the town might end up associated with some other larger city it’s closest to.
[1]: https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?citybyzipcode
makeitdouble|10 months ago
Fogest|10 months ago
Overall addresses are such a mess, and they are a mess even for governmental agencies like this one.
plorkyeran|10 months ago
bigstrat2003|10 months ago
tangus|10 months ago
stingraycharles|10 months ago
It’s almost entirely impossible to order through Amazon et al using this type of system, it’s just not supported at all.
The same goes for my country or origin (in EU), they require my address in order to be able to send important mail. It’s just not possible because of the computer systems not accepting anything without a zipcode, address and house number.
BobaFloutist|10 months ago
And what's preventing you and your neighbors from having a meeting, agreeing on a numbering convention, and putting street numbers on your house? I guess it would be a bit silly/meaningless if you don't have your street name.
m463|10 months ago
https://ci.carmel.ca.us/post/addresses
A unique characteristic of Carmel-by-the-Sea is that there are no street addresses. Properties are identified, for example, as being on the "west side of San Antonio Street, 3 houses south of 12th Avenue". In addition to this, many owners give their homes a name. The name you choose does not have to be approved or registered with the City.
duped|10 months ago
dataflow|10 months ago
The "almost" is interesting - how do you do it in reality?
rblatz|10 months ago
bobsmooth|10 months ago
BlueTemplar|10 months ago
James C. Scott would be proud.