The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

In "The Address Book," Deirdre Mask explores the significance of something that most of us take for granted—street addresses. Did you know that many households around the globe are off the grid? Mask tells us about an initiative, "Addressing the World," whose organizers try to help residents acquire addresses in such places as India and—believe it or not—rural West Virginia. Having an address can "lift people out of poverty, [while] facilitating access to credit, voting rights, and worldwide markets." Mask humorously describes how she gets hopelessly lost while trying to find a house by following ridiculously elaborate and arcane directions. After asking for help, she eventually arrives at her destination.

Another issue that Mask show more tackles is the origin and meaning of street names. The author points out that certain citizens object to naming streets after members of the confederacy who were pro-segregation and pro-slavery. Another curious fact is that there are no streets in Ireland named after the Irish Republican Army revolutionary Bobby Sands, who died in prison after a protracted hunger strike. Sands considered himself a liberator, but he advocated acts of violence to achieve his aims. It is also worth noting that street names and addresses may be indicative of the financial, social, and cultural status of various neighborhoods.

Like Susan Orlean, author of "The Orchid Thief" and "The Library Book," Deirdre Mask mines a seemingly ordinary subject and strikes gold. We learn in these pages that the French Revolution led to a frantic renaming of streets; mapping an area can help epidemiologists stem outbreaks of disease; street names can inflate or depress property values; and some individuals do not want addresses at all. The reason is that they prefer to avoid the prying eyes of government officials. This is a colorful, literate, funny, and fascinating work of non-fiction that is enriched by intriguing anecdotes—many are derived from historical events, but all of them remain relevant today. Ms. Mask puts a new spin on Juliet's eloquent words in "Romeo and Juliet": “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The author demonstrates that, in the eyes of many, street names matter a great deal. They may be commemorative, controversial, and in some cases, downright infuriating. show less

This is an outstanding mashup of sociology and history on a topic which is outwardly most plebian: the naming and numbering of streets all over the globe, back in time as well as in the current day. The author's research ranges so far and wide, but her focus on specific areas (W. Virginia, South African townships, Paris, Manhattan, Kolkata, early Rome, just to name a few) would makes every reader wonder about her own street! In many areas, although residents recognized that it would be easier to find their homes in an emergency if it was identifiable on a map, they also preferred living where no "gummint" could find and tax them. The contentious sections on renaming of Confederate-identified and on Apartheid officials' places induce show more anger for the blatant racism, and one of the most moving sections is where streets named for Martin Luther King Jr are located within American cities, and what the naming usually signifies about who lives there. The listener wishes that the author could keep her valuable analysis moving throughout our country and our world, back in time and in current day. It's like taking a riveting course taught by an engrossing professor. Fine narration too. show less

A kaleidoscopic look at a subject that might seem mundane. The table of contents touches on areas few think about when filing out a service slip or credit application:
Kolkata : how can street addresses transform the slums? --
Haiti : could street addresses stop an epidemic? --
Rome : how did the ancient Romans navigate? --
London : where do street names come from? --
Vienna : what can house numbers teach us about power? --
Philadelphia : why do Americans love numbered streets? --
Korea and Japan : must streets be named? --
Iran : why do street names follow revolutionariess? --
Berlin : what do Nazi street names tell us about Vergangenheitsbewältigung? --
Hollywood, Florida : why can't Americans stop arguing about Confederate street names? show more --
St. Louis : what do Martin Luther King Jr. Streets reveal about race in America? --
South Africa : who belongs on South Africa's street signs? --
Manhattan : how much is a street name worth? --
Homelessness : how do you live without an address? -- show less

With The Address Book Deirdre Mask has written a fascinating book on what may seem to be a mundane topic. Think of your own address. It probably has a house number, and a street name. How could there be anything exciting about that?

Well, Mask shows there are interesting stories to be told about the origins of both house numbering and street names. There are also controversies and societal differences to be explored. And there are usages of addresses we in the modern world take for granted, but work to the detriment of others.

For example, to apply for almost any job you’ll need to provide an address when you fill out the application form. Homeless people looking to find employment face discrimination as a result, as they don’t have show more an address to provide. How can a homeless person get a job to work their way out of homelessness, when the first requirement is that they provide an address?

That example shows that simply having a street address is a mark of social status and privilege. In countries like India, which the author explores at length, large segments of the population don’t have street addresses and are trapped in a cycle of poverty and lack of access to government programs as a result. And, as in so many other areas of life, race plays a role in street naming and the availability of street addresses as well, both here in the US and abroad.

Numbering conventions are another interesting topic. In the US many cities use a system that places even address numbers on one side of the street and odd address numbers on the other. This system actually started in colonial Philadelphia as a result of the desire for order the founding Quakers brought with them.

Mask looks back at the history of public health and explores the discovery of the source of cholera in 1800s London. Pioneering epidemiologist John Snow was able to map cholera cases and track the source of the disease to an infected public water tap. He was able to do this detective work in large part because London had street addresses by which the cholera cases could be tracked and mapped.

Street addresses offer other benefits. They ensure that the ambulance or fire truck driver knows where they are going. They ensure that our mail and packages get to us on time.

But street addresses didn’t start out as a scheme to benefit the individuals in society. They started out as a scheme to assist the government. Street addresses help governments take censuses and know where the draft age males live. Street addresses make it easier for governments to know where to go to apprehend crime suspects. The original street addressing efforts were seen by many citizens as government intrusions and signs of governmental control, and were protested as a result.

The Address Book wanders through these topics and more, including the social perceptions that accompany street names. For many Americans, Martin Luther King Boulevard in their city or town is where you will find a preponderance of African Americans. Naming streets for significant or popular figures has a long history and can be controversial depending on the figure being honored by the street name.

Mask unpeels one aspect of street addresses after another. With The Address Book she takes us on a fun, informative and entertaining journey through the history and impacts of something that most of us don’t give a second thought. I learned a lot and had fun reading this book. Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐. show less

I love accessible nonfiction that is narrative, knowledgeable and gives me something to think about. As our society looks more closely at equity, a book like this is a real eye-opener. I have never considered what it means to have (or more accurately, not have) an address. It is one of the first things I memorized as a school-age child. Organized into sections: Development, Origins, Politics, Race, Class and Status, subchapters then give historical data, or contemporary case studies, or anecdotes both personal and research-based to provide a thorough picture of just what it means to be anchored to a specific place. Some of the topics are admittedly controversial, but handled with thoroughness of multiple view-points and are used to show more illustrate the greater concept here: location matters for myriad reasons. I learned: movements are underway to try to create addresses for the slums in Kolkata, India because "addresses are one of the cheapest ways to lift people out of poverty, facilitating access to credit, voting rights, and worldwide markets" (4) The same is true of homelessness and technology and innovative thinking are addressing that world-wide. Also: it wasn't until the 1700s that humans began keeping track of exact living location. This phenomena sprang up simultaneously in various regions of the world, just as centralized monarchies and governments were forming cohesive states. "Before they addressed houses, governments were blind to who their people were. House numbers gave them eyes." - and a way to find soldiers for armies. Also most American cities rely on grid layouts of straight lines, where landscape allows - and this is connected to the way we write - in straight lines from left to right vs. Eastern cultures that have a character system. And, vanity addresses are one of the most recent things that make location important - often the building is not actually located on the street the address names - especially true in NYC real estate. There are dozens more of these informative interesting examples as Mask focuses on her 5 areas and makes an important case for an overlooked everyday concept. show less

I have noted plenty of irony in suburban addresses more than once (where are the oaks on Oak Trail? Is Happy Valley Road in a valley, and are the residents all that happy?) So when I read a review of Mask's book about addresses, I jumped at a chance to read it. Mask takes a broad look at addresses, at the history and current issues relating to describing the places we live. Her introduction is essay-worthy of itself, giving a solid overview of where they come from and why we should care. She relates a story of visiting an address-less town in Appalachia and what it means in both concrete (directions to visitors, ambulances, property rights) and philosophical/political senses (after looking at a house on Black Boy Lane), as well as where show more the names come from once you create an address.

Mask is an engaging, accessible writer, and the early chapters flew by. After the introduction, the book is divided into five sections: Development, Origins, Politics, Race, and Class and Status. It's followed by a hefty bibliography, for those who want to check references and be reassured she isn't merely writing a light-weight interest story. Each section has at least a couple of essays exploring the topic, nominally written around an example city.

Development looks at Kolkata and the problem of street addresses and slum transformation. "But the lack of addresses was depriving those living in the slums a chance to get out of them. Without an address, it’s nearly impossible to get a bank account. And without a bank account, you can’t save money, borrow money, or receive a state pension." The second section looks at disease and addresses. In London in 1765 all houses were given numbers. When death certificates were done they had the address of the victim, which allowed Dr. John Snow tracing of a cholera epidemic. Brief discussion follows of the cholera epidemic in Haiti and how lack of addresses challenged pinpointing the source.

Under Origins section, 'Rome: How did the ancient Romans navigate' goes more into how addresses came about. Interestingly, despite being one of cultural touchpoints for government organization, the Romans, did not use addresses or street names. I found discussion of a MIT researcher in the 1950s talking about mental maps fascinating. Some cities are ‘highly imageable’ to our senses, which made them more memorable. She also relates a physiological study about how mental maps cause more of the hippocampus to fire, while using GPS/navigation causes less. There is some speculation here in this section, about how ancient Romans might have navigated, using the input from research.

Also under Origins, 'London: Where do street names come from,' contains some of the details of how street names came about, both in common parlance and in development of the postal system. "House numbers were not invented to help you navigate the city or receive your mail, though they perform those two functions admirably. Instead they were designed to make you easier to tax, imprison, and police. House numbers exist not to help you find your way, but rather to help the government find you." Part of the section also investigates how the recently created addresses helped a doctor track down a cholera outbreak. 'Vienna: What can house numbers teach us about power' continues the theme of government motivations, beginning with how giving house numbers in Vienna helped the ruler discover and track men of fighting age for conscription. This goes a little sideways into surnames as well, especially with government regulation with Native Americans and Jewish people in many countries. There was a French police officer, Guillauté, who created one of the first efforts at police Big Data by devising a mechanical file cabinet and tracking system for all French citizens in the 1750s.

'Philadelphia' is a more historical section, tracing the development of numbered streets in Manhattan and Philadelphia. 'Korea and Japan: Must streets be named' was intriguing in philosophical bent. Try this concept on: "Instead of naming its streets, Tokyo numbers its blocks. Streets are simply the spaces between the blocks. And buildings in Tokyo are, for the most part, numbered not in geographical order, but according to when they were built." Mind blown. Buildings connecting over time, instead of just location. Apparently, it comes from when the owners for each block had responsibility for government. She then segues into the theory of mental images and places, and connects Tokyo's system to it's most prevalent form of writing, Kanji, which is in 'logograms--each character represents a word or idea.' Children learn kanji by writing on grid-paper.

'Politics' examines address names in Iran and their connection to revolutionaries. The section on Berlin looks at how street names changed back and forth with politics: from pre-Nazi; to Nazi period, where any Jewish connected address was renamed; post-WWII when East and West Berlin got new street names again as the city tried to erase the past; and again, post-unification. One of the saddest commentaries came from an interviewee who had discovered she and her hairstylist were raised in the same city but had known the schools under different names: "We cannot talk about places that we have no common name for. Talking about cities, schools, and streets in East Germany, you have to translate between old, new, and very old."

The 'Race' section looks at Confederate names in Hollywood, Florida, and an activist who has been trying to get three streets renamed for over a decade. Another piece looks at MLK Jr. streets across America and one man's effort to beautify his in St. Louis. The final piece 'South Africa: Who belongs on South Africa's street signs,' looks at names in South Africa pre and post-apartheid, and considers the context of British influence and the Afrikaaner culture. This was a fascinating section. Although her essay predates #BLM and the removal of Confederate statutes, it ably demonstrates that the issue has been known and 'debated' endlessly to the disrespect of a formerly enslaved people. It only takes the sections on Berlin and South Africa to understand that what seems to be a refusal to 'erase' part of U.S. history by removing statutes is also about retaining a culture and a power difference embodied by naming prominent streets after infamous insurrectionists looking to maintain slavery--Lee, Hood (John Bell Hood) and Forrest (Nathan Bedford Forrest). To run them through Liberia, the Black section of Hollywood, Florida, is to demonstrate the power differential to the Black citizens.

The last section, 'Class and Status' contains two essays. The first covers Manhattan and status connected to addresses, and developers' push to buy a name. For instance, 1 Central Park West (developed by Trump) had asked the city to change it's designated address from 15 Columbus Circle. It was, but somehow just a few years later, "Time Warner built a tower behind Trump's, naming it One Central Park--even though its address was really 25 Columbus Circle." The last is 'Homelessness: How do you live without an address' revisits some of the issues raised in the slums of India and what not having an address means. One English innovator suggested a mail forwarding system using the 200,000 houses in London that are empty six months of the year, or the 11k that have been unoccupied for over ten years. These two felt surprisingly light, more like specifically written magazine pieces, given how full earlier chapters were. But the quality is good--think The New Yorker.

As with the introduction, she uses her conclusion to discuss other aspects of addresses, specifically about new efforts by Google and by smaller companies such as what3words to have a world-wide address system. what3words boggles my mind with it's grid system and naming based on three words.

Overall, even the lighter pieces had me thinking. I found it a fascinating read examining the intersection of place and culture.

cross posted at my blog, where there are links and such. https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2021/02/23/the-address-book-what-street-addresse... show less

The simple street address is not only a relatively new concept, it is controversial everywhere it is implemented. Deirdre Mask has spent years traveling and discovering how people get on without addresses, how different implementations work (or don't), how addresses have figured in history, and how the digital world wants to change it all. She has put it together in her charming and engaging The Address Book.

The even/odd address system that most Americans are so accustomed to began in Philadelphia just three hundred years ago. It works, and yet Chicago had to to invent its own system 200 years later. The Japanese number blocks and not houses (and they are not alone in that). Some assign numbers by the year the building went up instead show more of sequentially. And many, many places still have no identifying systems in place at all. Mask uses the example of ancient Rome, a metropolis of a million, where without addresses, directions to find anyone or anything were, to put it mildly, involved. And yet, the city functioned as no other before it. Somewhat less functional was her experience in modern-day West Virginia, where a lack of street names and addresses led her to ask numerous people for directions, and still failing, had someone lead her almost there.

While that might seem unreasonable in a connected world, it does mean that locals become experts. Their knowledge grows vast, having to know people, landmarks, ruins, individual trees, people's homes, and what might have been there along the way before. Mask points out that GPS requires almost no brain power, and Americans use less and less of it make their way anywhere anymore.

In western society at least, not having a street address is fatal. It's essentially impossible to open a bank account, obtain a legitimate ID, rent an apartment, or get a job without one. This artificial prejudice is primarily a legal complication, of course. The government wants everyone to be traceable, for income tax purposes, for criminal pursuit, and for good old control. The unintended consequences include marginalizing an already marginal group, for life. Once they fall into that trap, there is rarely escape. Schemes to allow the homeless to use the address of a shelter, or vacant housing, have gone nowhere. If you don't have a street address, you are a non-entity. In the UK, organizations like the National Health Service and Unemployment services persist in using snail mail. If you don't get the letter and miss your appointment, it's curtains. You are canceled. She says: "Without an address, you are limited to communicating only with people who know you. And it's often people who don't know you who can most help you."

Address data is problematic. It has many great uses, but also dark sides. Addresses can mark people as living in bad districts, or racially dominated districts, poor or rich, religiously focused or mixed. Assumptions are assumed, loans approved or denied, interest rates lowered or raised, 911 calls answered or not, depending on the address attached. In the attempts over the years to assign addresses, people did not want them because they didn't want the junk mail, or to be followed or trackable. Freedom from street addresses is very real for some. Long before there were National ID numbers and Social Security Numbers to protest, there were street addresses that primarily benefited the monarch, the police and the tax collector.

The Address Book wanders globally and throughout history, with Mask injecting history lessons with great storytelling abilities. She tells the stories of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, of Marie-Theresa of Austria, the slums of Kolkata, how European Jews got their last names and navigating Tokyo all by their connections to street names and numbers.

Mask says the discussion of street names and numbers can dominate local politics, shooting to the top of the agenda when up for discussion. This can be a near daily thing in New York or Paris, where renaming is all but constant. Or it can happen when a community wants to remove Confederate names in the USA, or Nazi names in Germany. Some will cling to tradition and claim they will be lost otherwise. Some don't like the replacements. Developers will maneuver to obtain chic addresses, forcing the current user to change everything. It's always a struggle. This seems to be particularly true of England, where the original street names could be particularly descriptive of what went on there, in a very raw and crude sense. Today, those names add character, and higher valuations. Lane tops Boulevard in sales pricing, and embarrassing names can cause sales to take forever. I for one have long joked I could never live at the corner of Tinker Bell Boulevard and Goofy Gulch in a Disney development. On the other hand, living at Mortgage Heights and Default Drive is no privilege either.

For the near future, companies like Google and what3words are creating global systems that computers (of course) generate. What3words, for example, has divided the planet into three-metre (10 ft) squares, each labeled by three common words. Look up a three word combo on its website, and the map function takes you to a very specific spot that needs no further description. Sadly, it is in English, which does not work for everyone . So the company is developing other language systems, and you will have to know what language the three word are in and choose that subsystem in order for it to work. Google is doing the same thing with a seven digit code that is most unmemorable. Unlike The Address Book, which is a delight, it kinda takes the romance and character out of it.

David Wineberg show less