[HOT] Addresses in Africa

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El onsdag 31. august 2016 07.37.18 CEST john whelan escribió:
> ​There has been considerable talk about addressing schemes for areas that
> do not have street names etc.  Three words etc.

Count me amog those involved in those kind of conversations.


> In many parts of the western we use things called postcodes, certainly in
> Canada and the UK.
[...]
> For those areas that have had buildings mapped the local “Post Office” could 
> be involved in assigning house numbers.

I'm going to just voice out an idea. Maybe it's a stupid idea, maybe not.

I'll argue that postal systems do not work well in areas without postal 
addresses (d'oh), and that post offices outright don't exist in areas where 
analphabetism is rampant. 

I'll further argue that there is a logistics network that does serve all those 
areas, and with a much higher fequency: distribution of bottled drinks.

I digged around in my memory and could find a reference to http://
www.colalife.org/2010/12/19/how-coca-colas-distribution-system-works/


So I'd say that maybe, just maybe, some kind of ad-hoc "bottle area codes" do 
exist, and that they might have minimal overlapping already, and that the 
distributors already have an ad-hoc hierarchy of addressable areas, matching 
their logistics model.


If anyone is going to tap into post codes expertise, I humbly suggest to 
consider logistics chains other than post. IMHO post doesn't get anywhere, but 
soft drinks and beer does.


Cheers,
-- 
Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivan at sanchezortega.es> <ivan at geonerd.org> 
<ivan at mazemap.no>