
German town votes ‘No’ to street names - theBashShell
https://www.dw.com/en/german-town-votes-no-to-street-names/a-47345093
======
lisper
None of the discussion I've seen here so far has raised what I think to be a
much more important point: there should be an extra level of indirection
between me and my physical mailing address. In other words, there should be a
DNS for physical mailing addresses. That way my publicly visible "host name"
wouldn't reveal where I actually live (makes it harder for burglars to find
me) and if I move I only have to update my real physical location in one place
(my "name server") rather than with everyone who wants to send me mail. Also,
publicly-facing logical addresses (the analogue to "host names") could be
mnemonic, and one person could have multiple aliases. So you could, for
example, send physical mail to (say) "Lisper@HN".

This way no one except delivery people would care what these addresses
resolved to. They could be lat/long, traditional street addresses, X-codes,
whatever.

~~~
mvdwoord
Congratulations, you have figured out what a P.O. Box is. A bit out of fashion
(at least in NL) but was the standard for exactly this. Or people who were
expecting to move around quite a bit.

My Dad used to have one (around the divorce of my mom), My Uncle had one, as
he was abroad a lot and moved house a couple of times, and wanted a dutch
address. etc etc.

As for paper email, aren't there also services that open and scan your mail
for you?

Not exactly "DNS for physical mail" as you described but quite handy!

As for the obfuscation part, if the delivery people know how to resolve... so
will many others. ;)

~~~
lisper
No. A PO box is a physical location, it just happens not to be my home. If I
move non-locally I have to change PO boxes.

~~~
lscotte
There are mail services that do this - it's like a PO box, but not provided by
the postal service and they will forward your mail to anywhere. These services
are quite popular with RV folks and world sailors. Some will even scan your
mail for you.

~~~
lisper
The problem with forwarding is that the mail has to make two physical hops so
it takes twice as long and requires twice the resources. This gets
particularly annoying if I set the service up in, say, California and then
move to New York.

~~~
bootlooped
Ideally the US Postal Service could offer a service like this, then it
wouldn't require any extra steps.

~~~
lisper
Yes. Exactly. Except that I would want a private entity to manage the database
in the same way that name servers are done now because I want the private
carriers to be able to access that info. And I would like the protocol to be
open so that I could manage my own entry(s) if I chose to.

------
gumby
Good for them -- it's their town after all!

My grandmother's house (in Australia) was assigned a house number (in the
70s?) but she refused to use it, continuing to give her address as the house
name and insisting that we grandkids address letters to her by name. As far as
I know they always arrived. There was no number on the house or letterbox. I
went by a few months ago (somebody else lives there now) and there's a number
on the letterbox.

My in-laws live in a village in Germany (a little south of the town in this
article) with only two streets, referred to as "am Berge" and "im Dorf" (on
the hill and in the village) and though the house numbers are not unified as
in this article's case, there is no actual street sign -- but by "name" it's
pretty obvious which is which.

~~~
scotty79
Good for the 60% of the 69% of voters that showed up and voted against street
names. Less good for 40% of 69% voters that showed up and voted for street
names. And probably 'meh' for 31% of voters that didn't care enough to show
up.

Personally I really hope something like
[https://plus.codes/](https://plus.codes/) will catch up. People should be
easily able to provide address without knowing or caring about local
arrangements.

~~~
gumby
> Personally I really hope something like
> [https://plus.codes/](https://plus.codes/) will catch up.

Who needs some proprietary system (there’s also a so-called “three word”
competing system). Just use lat/long which are universal.

> People should be easily able to provide address without knowing or caring
> about local arrangements.

What can be more “local” than an address and why should it be subject to
outside specification?

If you consider lat/long user-unfriendly then just stuff them into URIs of
some sort — URLs would work — and keep this em in a sort of DNS. Then people
could name their addresses whatever they want.

~~~
JimmyAustin
The issue with lat/long isn't just that it's inconvenient, but it doesn't map
to high density structures. A resident of 432 Park Avenue, the tallest
residential building in the world with 96 stories, would share a lat/long with
95 other people.

~~~
goldenkey
You can do exactly what is done now...

LatxLng Apt 23C

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Assuming the building is bound on all sides by roads then delivery drivers
will need to know on which of those roads to gain access. Why not name the
roads, then you can say the road name.

Also, when sorting mail looking up lat-long for every item is tedious, so we
could name the address by the town/city name that it is local too.

Now lat-long is getting to be redundant ...

------
nmeofthestate
This is a good example of humans' inherent bull-headed conservatism and
hostility to change. The desire to keep something the same, simply because
that's the way it is, regardless of the downsides. I actually saw someone
defending this as the villagers preserving their "cultural distinctiveness" \-
people believing it's a key part of their identity that they have an awkward
error-prone addressing system in their village! It's quite something.

~~~
monadgonad
It _is_ a part of that town's identity, and the inconvenience to courier
corporations is no good reason why they should give up on that. It's not about
individual people's identity, it's about the town's identity. This bit of
cultural distinctiveness - no need for scare quotes as that's exactly what it
is - makes it of historical interest and attractive to tourists.

~~~
nmeofthestate
" the inconvenience to courier corporations is no good reason why they should
give up on that."

This is an inconvenience to themselves - the courier is just providing them
with a service that is impaired by the addressing system. It is by definition
a good reason why they should replace the error-prone system.

Let me ask you - in your job, if someone suggests a change that will improve
how things work, would you be against it because the bad way of doing things
is party of the business's identity? It's nonsense, really isn't it.

~~~
gbear605
Jobs are different from towns. The people living here aren’t optimizing for
efficiency.

------
softgrow
Where I was brought up had no street number, just a road and house name. Was
an utter pain having to actually describe to everyone who visited drive along
the road (not included in street directories), look for a side road, then look
for a particular speed sign, then turn, oh and if you can't find it call from
the phone box in the town which had a map of the roads (but not houses) nearby
(20% did). Eventually got RAPID numbers which gave a grid co-ordinate and then
finally rural addressing where you got a house number which started at 1/2 at
one end and then incremented by 2 every 20m along the road. So much easier.

However I've seen the Japanese system and that works only because there are
maps everywhere telling where to find each house and every house has a nice
white lettering on blue plaque in exactly the same style so it is easy to
spot. Also people stick their names on letterbox/house so you can be sure. The
only problem is you have to get on the right street and in roughly the right
area which makes for complicated directions for the taxi driver, but for
post/courier deliveries it works well. [Mind you a Japanese GPS will do
addresses, but for some reason a party of foreigners seemed to cause it not to
work with some drivers, no problem I brought my own GPS and can give
directions!]

The article doesn't say if there are maps available, if they are then fine,
otherwise I'd vote for street names. Not sure if having a random house number
(German) instead of a road name (my former situation) is better or worse.

------
arendtio
OT: Since we like discussing Google Maps vs OSM quality here at HN. This is
just one example where OSM has the lead:

\-
[https://www.google.de/maps/@52.844593,9.1547416,15.75z](https://www.google.de/maps/@52.844593,9.1547416,15.75z)

\-
[https://maps.openrouteservice.org/directions?n1=52.843476&n2...](https://maps.openrouteservice.org/directions?n1=52.843476&n2=9.153532&n3=16&b=0&c=0&k1=en-
US&k2=km)

~~~
lucb1e
Osm has the lead in the majority of places. I used a random number generator
to generate coordinates (latitude between the southernmost and northernmost
point of land, I forgot the numbers, and -180 to +180 degrees longitude). Any
point that was not water, I'd zoom in to about street level by default and
zoom out until I saw a reasonable amount of features on at least one of the
maps. The maps I compared were Google, OpenStreetMap, Bing, and TomTom. I
wanted to also compare Apple but their maps are only for customers it seems.
To determine the best map, I considered mainly which had more features (a more
complete map), but between near-ties I also looked at satellite imagery to
determine which one was more accurate.

OpenStreetMap beats everything else.

I still want to write this up in a blog post with visual examples, and I'd
like to redo the test (for comparison) with random coordinates biased by
population centres (does anyone know how to generate those?). I'm curious if
that paints a different picture. But purely geographically, this de facto
standard isn't so great if you look beyond the western world.

~~~
skybrian
Interesting! Yep, a lot depends on the distribution you use for your random
sample.

But also, any attempt at objective weighting like this is going to pick a
single winner, but it's not the case that everyone is better off using the
same mapping service, since you mostly want coverage for the places you travel
to and that's different for each person.

~~~
lucb1e
Right now, that's true: some maps are better in certain regions than others.
But I don't think it's a given that "it's not the case that everyone is better
off using the same mapping service". Being an OpenStreetMap contributor, I
like to think that one day, the map might be complete enough that this is the
common basis for all mapping services. The data is free to use, as long as
you're willing to give credit and release any additions under the same
license.

Hosting is not free and even open source apps like OsmAnd limit the number of
downloads unless you buy the app. It's also still a big challenge to present
the data nicely and make a nice user interface. There will definitely still be
opportunities for competition and profit, even if all data is open. So
hopefully, one day, everyone is better off by having a single, complete map
available to use for anyone :)

------
kachurovskiy
This is actually quite common around here. In Austria you have e.g. Schlitters
and Alpbach that also don't have street names and they are even bigger than
Hilgermissen.

Related: use caution with Google Maps in Austria. Here e.g. it suggests you to
go through a steep mountain road (in current weather it's likely not passable
without chains) instead of taking a normal street:
[http://imgur.com/a/If4aMI7](http://imgur.com/a/If4aMI7)

~~~
jakobegger
I remember walking through a nearby village for two hours in the middle of the
night with a friend... we were invited to a party, but only knew the house
number.

Nowadays, everyone has maps on their phone so it's really not an issue any
more.

------
alkonaut
This has always been the norm for rural places in E.g. Sweden, sometimes even
with hundreds of houses.

I worked extra some weekends doing delivery, and in the age before good maps
and smartphones, this usually meant driving to one random house in the village
and asking where house 123 is.

~~~
ahje
Ditto in Finland, although we base the numbers on the distance to the start of
the road, so number 123 would be 1230 metres from the start of the road. Makes
it quite easy to find the way, actually.

~~~
alkonaut
Interesting. How does that work for a place with more than 1 road? Say 20
houses in a village right at the intersection between 2 roads (say houses
randomly placed in a circle within 1km from the intersection)?

~~~
ahje
I'm sure there are other variants as well, but buildings on private roads with
no name usually get an address based on where they intersect with the closest
public road.

If the road is public, it should have at least a number. Almost all public
roads have names, and many have two (as some parts of the country are bi-
lingual -- it makes address validation quite interesting).

------
thomasedwards
This is entirely common in Japan, few streets have names. Although, almost the
whole country does it, so it’s somewhat more accepted than one town.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system)

~~~
Tor3
Kyoto is the only city I've been to where I found street names..

And yes, it's a bit tricky to navigate. Even for locals, navigation tools or
not. It's usually a lot of talking on the phone while (sometimes frantically)
driving around, and trying to figure out where the nearest landmark is.

As for myself I usually go around by bicycle, and I'm not online when out of
wi-fi range. I can use an offline map, and if I know where to go I can get
there. But it's infinitely easier to navigate in my home country because of
street names+numbers (particularly when there's some system to the street
names - a flower theme in this area, a maritime theme in another area).
Because I _don 't_ need a satnav, or a map, or anything. I just go there. My
wife (Japanese) is still a bit surprised about that. Oh, and the postal
service now demands street names everywhere, so the last decade or so has
filled in street names wherever there weren't any before.

------
arethuza
I remember reading a about a snobby put down, I think it was between officers
in the British Army, where someone was made fun of "as his house has a
number"...

~~~
C1sc0cat
Ah like the famous Alan Clark quote on Heseltine "his father brought his own
furniture" which is of course topped by an even posher tory by "that's a bit
rich as his father brought his own castle"

------
arcticbull
Interesting, I've seen the same thing in Iqaluit, Nunavut, in the mid/far
north of Canada. Each of the roads have names but the house numbers aren't re-
used on each street. There's only one building 626 in Iqaluit. People don't
really know/use the street names, preferring to refer to just the number of
the house. Even the taxi drivers don't seem to like using them.

------
amelius
Why not go with GPS coordinates? :)

Anyway, I suspect this is more a vote against _change_ , than a vote against
the concept of street names.

------
3chelon
My current address has no street name, just a house name and village name.
Technically, there _is_ a street name, but no-one uses it because it's the
main street through the village.

I really don't see it as a problem: the local postman knows every house, and
these days with GPS the postal code gets delivery drivers within a few yards
without a problem. In fact, a post code and flat/house number or name is
technically enough to identify any property.

------
anandology
Reminds of Bhopal, a city in India. People there are very fond of numbers. You
see people getting on a bus and buying a ticket for "aath number" (number 8)
or even "saade paanch" (five and half). You are right, thay are names of
places. Not feeling well? get youself checked at "baara sau pachas" (twelve
hundred and fifty). Yes, that is the name of a public hospital. It took me a
while to get used it.

------
PavlovsCat
> Those advocating the introduction of street names pointed to postal and
> courier companies and holiday accommodation guests, who often struggle to
> find their destinations because consecutive house numbers are not always
> close to each other.

No, they struggle because their employers are treating them like shit. It's
not like they never struggle unless there's no street names and consecutive
house numbers. I often take packages for my neighbours when they're not home
and I am, and when the couriers express their heartfelt gratitude I kinda feel
bad, the whole situation is fucked up. And where I live, people have no issues
finding a house, but every second counts, and adds up to make the difference
between a shitty day at a shitty job, and a hellish day at a hellish job. It
stinks.

So I would vote against street names, too, just on the basis of not giving an
inch to pretending street names are the issue. Pay people by the hour for
doing their job correctly, and then let it take as long as it takes, then we
can talk.

------
gpvos
Openstreetmap has two street names though (but not for the "main street").

------
carlmr
Another nightmare for programmers.

~~~
okl
Not much worse than zip codes with letters.

~~~
d33
If you're trying to store numbers that might start with a zero using an
integer type, you're doing it wrong anyway. A rule of thumb is to ask yourself
the question: what does the result of adding two such values mean?

~~~
K2L8M11N2
Does that mean that e.g. numeric user ID should also me strings since adding
them is meaningless?

------
okl
The cause for confusion with the house numbers in that town seems to be that
the houses are not numbered sequentially with respect to their location.

~~~
buro9
Sequentially by construction date.

All you need to know to find somewhere is the order in which things were
constructed :D

~~~
ehrtt
You're going to love Japan.

------
localguy
"No Street Names"?
[https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2014321#map=17/52.844...](https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2014321#map=17/52.84450/9.15406)

------
konschubert
People just don’t like change.

~~~
gumby
Seems they don't see adequate value in the change.

~~~
IshKebab
Then they are short sighted. I think it is more just general resistance to
change.

------
Gupie
Interesting that there is a number 13 and a 13A, unlike some tower blocks that
allegedly have no floor 13.

~~~
pluma
We're still talking Germany here. The paranoia about floor 13 is considered a
very American oddity in Germany.

~~~
Tor3
Yeah.. I remember some decades ago when I was staying in a Canadian hotel, at
floor 14, then I found that I was actually on floor 13. It went directly from
12 to "14". I couldn't fathom that an actual hotel could fall to such
sillyness. But then I learned it's actually common there. Sigh.

~~~
pluma
I'd even say most Germans treat 13 the same way as 7, 69, 666, or any
Schnappszahl (repeating digits, e.g. 11 or 3333): "oh, nice" and a shrug. It's
not so much unlucky as just "spooky" but very few would lose any sleep over
it.

In fact I probably know more Germans who ironically insist that it's their
lucky number than Germans who'd refuse e.g. sitting on seat 13 in a train.

------
foreigner
Wouldn't a German town vote "nein" to Street names?

------
buboard
thats how you get Venice

~~~
carlob
Venice has both, which might make it more confusing. Each door can be
addressed either by street name + number1 or by sestiere name + number2. Note
that number1 and number2 do not coincide.

------
samuelfekete
Why is scrolling broken on the mobile version of that site?

------
stonewhite
Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/)

------
jasonkester
This is the sort of thing (a town with no street names, only numbers) that
would have been a big problem 20 years ago, but not an issue at all today.

Back in the days when people would use paper maps to navigate, you'd never
find house number 17 unless you actually called the guy and he told you to
turn left at the pharmacy. Today, your satnav will know where the place is and
will stop you right in front if it, regardless of whether #'s 16 and 18 are
half a mile away.

So there will have been a small window of time between when the town expanded
enough to have a few wacky outlier house numbers that nobody could find, and
when Google Maps fixed everything.

Today, they may as well just leave things the way they are.

~~~
mrweasel
It's honestly worse today. There's a ton of IT systems that will not accept an
address with no street name.

I worked on the address validation for a webshop. We wanted as much
flexibility in the addresses as possible, but the backend system had some
required fields. We settled on "at least three characters in the street name.
A little while later we got a call from a customer in Mannheim, who would like
to order, but his "street name" was reject. Why? Because Mannheim is a city of
squares (at least in the old part).

Ideally any address input field would just be a text field, where the user can
enter as much or as little information as is required.

