3 ms·
I think it's been mentioned in the original XAddress post, but the problem is not necessarily mapping a lat/long pair to a human-memorable address. The way cur
by adyus 10y ago
I think it's been mentioned in the original XAddress post, but the problem is not necessarily mapping a lat/long pair to a human-memorable address.
The way current addresses have worked (mostly) is by associating with landmarks. Large street names are known by lots of locals. Smaller streets are associated with larger streets by proximity (second left on Large Street). Numbers help place an address at the beginning, middle or end of a street, on the left or right.
Grid cities have an added advantage of encoding approximate location in the street name directly.
XAddress and What3Words solve a problem for the 4bn without street addresses, but they do not help locate things or navigate to them without being online.
- jmiserez 10y agoExactly. The addresses would need to be both hierarchical and systematical for people to be able to use them manually and infer unknown adresses from known ones. Otherwise you might as well use coordinates directly or send a shortened Google Maps link.
- roberdam 10y agoJust a real life example, I check something im interested on a classified ad and want to go see it, as you say the seller tell me how to get there, referencing other streets and local businesses (streets here are named after generals or war heroes, not grid style). When I try to find the address on Google Maps this is what it shows. https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*wK-gIc8QQYHwEz5-BaHPZA.jpeg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*wK-gIc8QQYHwEz5-Ba... And this is a city just 10 miles from the country capital. "3645 OUR DUDE - Central,Paraguay" would have been useful. Agree with you but dont have to be a "this or that" choice.
- adyus 10y agoWell, if one has to input a lat/long pair to get "3645 OUR DUDE - Central,Paraguay", the same effort[1] can lead to better data in Google Maps or better, OpenStreetMaps [1] http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/29079/my-house-address-isnt-listed-on-google-maps http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/29079/my-house-addres...
- pklausler 10y agoSome grid cities in the U.S. do even better by naming the named streets according to a system, such as alphabetizing them (Portland, Minneapolis, surely others) or by naming them for Presidents in their historical order (NE Mpls.) I'm convinced that there's educational benefits to these systems as well. I literally learned my alphabet backwards and forwards at the same time as I learned my local neighborhood geography.