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0 pointslayman511y ago0 comments

I think this idea that a building/property can have more than one address can happen in the United States too. The way I see it, it is because a ZIP code can be associated with a list of cities that are categorized as “recommended city name”, “other city names recognized for addresses in this zip code” and “city names to avoid”. [1]

So as an example, if you use the UPSP Cities by ZIP Code to research 77005 and you would see that they recommend using the city name of “Houston” for mail, but they would also recognize “West University Place”. There’s also a city called “Southside Place” which should be avoided when it comes to sending mail. But then that kind of makes me think that if a house is within the limits of one or these small cities, then it could in theory have the same street name but have two different city values in different databases.

Then on the other hand there’s a somewhat related problem where a small town or village (e.g. Somers, WI and Scotland, CT) can have multiple ZIP codes and that ends up causing a lot of headaches for the residents of the town since they all might live nearby but then each section of the town might end up associated with some other larger city it’s closest to.

[1]: https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?citybyzipcode

0 comments

brianpan1y ago

I know of a house near Chicago that has two addresses with different street names. It's on the corner of an intersection and the "mailing address" is different than the "front door" address.

Not that there's a mailbox on the mailing address street. (There's only a small side profile of a house/yard on the mailing address street side). There doesn't seem to be a good reason for the mailing address.

duped1y ago

> The way I see it, it is because a ZIP code can be associated with a list of cities that are categorized as “recommended city name”, “other city names recognized for addresses in this zip code” and “city names to avoid”. [1]

This one affects me personally and it bugs me programmers think that they know better than I do about my address when I try and enter the city name and zip code, then they "correct" the city name based on the zip code and make it read only.

a) what was the point of me entering the city if you were going to fill it in anyway ?

b) this has happened in the last two cities I've lived and is dirt common around a major metro area in the United States. Stop autocorrecting user entered data, let them be wrong!

nightfly1y ago

Also: I live on sevenmile hill Rd. Google thinks it's 7 mile hill Rd, and others sometimes call it seven mile hill rd

Dylan168071y ago

You can pick from multiple city names on tons of addresses. But that's a lot less exciting than having multiple completely separate numbers or streets for the same building.

layman51OP1y ago

I suppose it is, but to me it came as a bit of a surprise that if I want to send mail to someone in a certain area, I can essentially toss a coin when trying to figure out which city name to use as long as I don’t use certain ones that are discouraged names. I believe my ZIP code has two city names I could use, but I would never use the non-main one because in my mind, that other city is miles away.

That struck me, although I already knew that a ZIP code could span multiple cities and sometimes even states. I just thought there would be no confusion about which city name to use.

pests1y ago

I’m almost positive you can omit city name completely and just include a street address and zip code.

devmor1y ago

This happens in metro areas quite frequently. I used to live in a suburb of Atlanta that had a valid address in "Atlanta, GA" and "Suburb, GA" - which was a common annoyance when using delivery apps or service area locating systems as which address was considered "valid" often changed depending on the provider of their mapping API.

bobthepanda1y ago

There’s also the question of unit numbers and whatnot. In some addressing lookup systems in the US my address is 525 Some Road Unit G; but I have encountered systems that treat it as 525G Some Road.

koakuma-chan1y ago

The unit is usually formatted as either `{building number}-{unit number} {street name}` or `{building number} {street name}, Unit {unit number}`. But both resolve to the same thing.

BobaFloutist1y ago

What I like is that address box 2 (sometimes unlabelled, lives under the address box) exists specifically for unit numbers. So, I'll put in my street address in two lines:

  Street Address  :792 Charleston Avenue
  Street Address 2:555

At which point, almost invariably, it'll say "Do you want to accept the Post Office's recommended address?"

  Street Address  :792 Charleston Avenue 555
  Street Address 2:

Why provide the second address box if even in the one case where it's relevant and appropriate to use it, you're going to just stick the unit number in the first line anyway? It's so silly!

FireBeyond1y ago

Then you have vanity addresses, when I worked for a utility. Where people might put their address as, say, Beverly Hills 90212.

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