4 ms·

Technically it's the same in the US. Street number, name, and zip code is all you need, but even the US postal service recommends keeping the city and state fo

Technically it's the same in the US. Street number, name, and zip code is all you need, but even the US postal service recommends keeping the city and state for redundancy. It sometimes leads to funny situations if you live near city boundaries where you can get mail sent TO multiple different cities that are all your address.

abakker 9y ago
Yeah. A friend of mine lives in both Long Island City and Sunnyside and Queens. If you get the zip code and the street right, it all works.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 9y ago
  It's fairly common in some areas of the US to have "villages" or some other historical place name that's now actually part of a larger town or city. And people routinely use both names.
- theandrewbailey 9y ago
  When my brother moved in, he gave the city part of the address as <neighborhood>. I told him that I've always given the address with <big city> and I've never had problems.
snuxoll 9y ago
My mother, grandmother and sister all live in Garden City, ID - which is a small little area enveloped by Boise, ID on all sides. Every piece of mail they get has Boise, ID listed on it - and any time they give someone their address they do the same. Why on Earth we have zipcodes but still add the city/state is beyond me.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Encoding redundancy in because of bad handwriting, smudged labels, etc. is generally a good idea.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  You also have the concept in some situations of 'vanity addressing'. I worked for a water utility in Melbourne Australia. There were (for but one example), two adjacent suburbs, Box Hill and Mont Albert, the latter of which had a perceived prestige. We'd always have some people, and more so as you reached the border of the suburbs, who'd give their address as Mont Albert, but with Box Hill's post code. This allowed the system to be functional for our purposes without arguing with the customer. Is it a problem we should have to deal with or feel compelled to? No, but that was the decision made, in this case.
malyk 9y ago
I live in a .zip code that spans eastern Emeryville and north Oakland and most web forms these days force correct my address to Emeryville and won’t let me change it to Oakland. As an engineer I get it, but damn if it isn’t annoying to not be able to have your real address on your packages...if only for aesthetic reasons.
- softawre 9y ago
  "real address" is a misnomer. There's a difference between who you pay your taxes to, and who delivers your mail. These are two different things, and when delivering mail, the latter is the one that matters.
- pc86 9y ago
  I live in a borough that has its own governing council, mayor, and police force. Half a square mile and a few thousand resident. However, everyone's mailing address is the name of the city we're adjacent to, which also has its own governing council, mayor, and police force. Putting in my town's name results in mail not getting delivered. Mailing address != physical address, at least when it comes to city/township/borough organization.
- niftich 9y ago
  ZIP Codes are not geographical entities and don't correspond to geographical extent; rather, they are a hybrid between a discrete number of finite delivery-points and an abstract way of capturing a postal delivery route. They are often abused as geographical entities, which the Census Bureau has tried to rectify with ZCTAs [1], but it's unclear whether most informal use of Zip Codes is haphazard, or actually conforms to ZCTAs. However, Zip Codes directly map to one preferred place name designated by the USPS, and zero or more acceptable alternative place names. These are usually inspired by, but don't necessarily correspond to municipalities and political units that the lots in question belong under. You're more than likely talking about Zip Code 94608, of whose preferred name is 'Emeryville', but 'Oakland' is an acceptable name [2]. There is a lot of software that takes the shortcut and autofills or autocorrects the preferred name, especially because informal lists of Zip Codes seem to be easier and/or cheaper to get a hold of than through official sources at the USPS [3]. Perhaps a nationally-known example is the Las Vegas Strip, most of whose famous casino-hotels are located in the unincorporated town and CDP of Paradise, but covered by two Zip Codes that only accept Las Vegas as the name. In rural areas with weak local government, people develop an affinity for the preferred place name of their address' Zip Code, because it's a standardized way of referring to the locale where more specific names are not widely known. [1] https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html [2] https://california.hometownlocator.com/zip-codes/data,zipcode,94608.cfm https://california.hometownlocator.com/zip-codes/data,zipcod... [3] https://www.usps.com/nationalpremieraccounts/manageprocessandaddress.htm https://www.usps.com/nationalpremieraccounts/manageprocessan...
FussyZeus 9y ago
Confirmed, I live in a mess of various "towns" around the larger Green Bay Metro area in Wisconsin. Anyone from out of the area would say I live in Green Bay, but where I live you could say is in up to three different towns. shrug

abakker 9y ago

Yeah. A friend of mine lives in both Long Island City and Sunnyside and Queens. If you get the zip code and the street right, it all works.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ghaff 9y ago
It's fairly common in some areas of the US to have "villages" or some other historical place name that's now actually part of a larger town or city. And people routinely use both names.
theandrewbailey 9y ago
When my brother moved in, he gave the city part of the address as <neighborhood>. I told him that I've always given the address with <big city> and I've never had problems.

snuxoll 9y ago

My mother, grandmother and sister all live in Garden City, ID - which is a small little area enveloped by Boise, ID on all sides. Every piece of mail they get has Boise, ID listed on it - and any time they give someone their address they do the same. Why on Earth we have zipcodes but still add the city/state is beyond me.

ghaff 9y ago
Encoding redundancy in because of bad handwriting, smudged labels, etc. is generally a good idea.
FireBeyond 9y ago
You also have the concept in some situations of 'vanity addressing'. I worked for a water utility in Melbourne Australia. There were (for but one example), two adjacent suburbs, Box Hill and Mont Albert, the latter of which had a perceived prestige. We'd always have some people, and more so as you reached the border of the suburbs, who'd give their address as Mont Albert, but with Box Hill's post code. This allowed the system to be functional for our purposes without arguing with the customer. Is it a problem we should have to deal with or feel compelled to? No, but that was the decision made, in this case.

malyk 9y ago

I live in a .zip code that spans eastern Emeryville and north Oakland and most web forms these days force correct my address to Emeryville and won’t let me change it to Oakland. As an engineer I get it, but damn if it isn’t annoying to not be able to have your real address on your packages...if only for aesthetic reasons.

softawre 9y ago
"real address" is a misnomer. There's a difference between who you pay your taxes to, and who delivers your mail. These are two different things, and when delivering mail, the latter is the one that matters.
pc86 9y ago
I live in a borough that has its own governing council, mayor, and police force. Half a square mile and a few thousand resident. However, everyone's mailing address is the name of the city we're adjacent to, which also has its own governing council, mayor, and police force. Putting in my town's name results in mail not getting delivered. Mailing address != physical address, at least when it comes to city/township/borough organization.
niftich 9y ago
ZIP Codes are not geographical entities and don't correspond to geographical extent; rather, they are a hybrid between a discrete number of finite delivery-points and an abstract way of capturing a postal delivery route. They are often abused as geographical entities, which the Census Bureau has tried to rectify with ZCTAs [1], but it's unclear whether most informal use of Zip Codes is haphazard, or actually conforms to ZCTAs. However, Zip Codes directly map to one preferred place name designated by the USPS, and zero or more acceptable alternative place names. These are usually inspired by, but don't necessarily correspond to municipalities and political units that the lots in question belong under. You're more than likely talking about Zip Code 94608, of whose preferred name is 'Emeryville', but 'Oakland' is an acceptable name [2]. There is a lot of software that takes the shortcut and autofills or autocorrects the preferred name, especially because informal lists of Zip Codes seem to be easier and/or cheaper to get a hold of than through official sources at the USPS [3]. Perhaps a nationally-known example is the Las Vegas Strip, most of whose famous casino-hotels are located in the unincorporated town and CDP of Paradise, but covered by two Zip Codes that only accept Las Vegas as the name. In rural areas with weak local government, people develop an affinity for the preferred place name of their address' Zip Code, because it's a standardized way of referring to the locale where more specific names are not widely known. [1] https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html [2] https://california.hometownlocator.com/zip-codes/data,zipcode,94608.cfm https://california.hometownlocator.com/zip-codes/data,zipcod... [3] https://www.usps.com/nationalpremieraccounts/manageprocessandaddress.htm https://www.usps.com/nationalpremieraccounts/manageprocessan...

FussyZeus 9y ago

Confirmed, I live in a mess of various "towns" around the larger Green Bay Metro area in Wisconsin. Anyone from out of the area would say I live in Green Bay, but where I live you could say is in up to three different towns. shrug