[Talk-us] Addresses with no house number

stevea steveaOSM at softworkers.com
Fri Jan 25 23:38:31 GMT 2013


There is at least one town in the USA, Carmel, California (sometimes 
called "Carmel-by-the-Sea" as there is also a Carmel Valley which is 
a half-hour drive from Carmel inland).  Carmel does not use addresses 
per se using house numbers.  I have no idea how the Post Office does 
things -- it really must be quite annoying to them, but they 
evidently manage somehow.

At least in the business district, you'll hear a description of where 
a business is located as something like:  "On Dolores between Fifth 
and Sixth."  That's how I've heard it on at least one radio ad.

Clearly, in Carmel (and perhaps Council Hill, Oklahoma?), we'll need 
to leave the addr:housenumber out of OSM's data entirely, as there 
really is no such thing.  Some houses may have or be reasonably 
well-known with what fits into OSM as an addr:housename, and indeed 
there may even be a scheme (same one used by the Post Office?) which 
does something similar to what the radio ads do for businesses.  For 
example, a particular residential house in Carmel might be assigned 
as an address node tag:

addr:housename=Casanova Street, East side, third house south of 9th

I'm whole-cloth inventing this as an example, and again, it would be 
good to know what the Post Office does.  (Or even 911, if it is 
discernable, as that might be more definitive as it seems more 
local).  But the main reason I share this knowledge is to demonstrate 
that there is at least one place in the USA that has no numbered 
addresses as we commonly experience them.

SteveA
California


>This and many other annoying addressing schemes used to be common, but
>I thought the enhanced 911 system did away with this sort of thing.  I
>did a quick google search and I can't find any address for that school
>though.
>
>On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 10:21 AM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org> wrote:
>>  A PO Box doesn't work for navigation purposes, which is what I thought we
>>  were focusing on.  Oddly enough, the school does have a mailbox on Third
>>  near Pine.  House numbers don't appear to be a thing in Council Hill, I
>>  didn't see anything there (though I was pushing a deadline and running
>>  behind, hence only focusing on Midway Schools, so I might have missed it;
>>  the schools were definitely was unnumbered).
>>
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