The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

by Deirdre Mask

all the things you can’t do without an address: get an ID card, a passport. You can’t get a marriage license without a street address, nor, in the UK, can you use a post office box. Credit agencies use them to give your credit score.

suspected that we are no different now, celebrating what we see to be beautiful and neglecting the value of invisible infrastructure.

there’s no guarantee that residents will even choose to use the addresses you assign.

The company has promised that the app and website will always be free, but I’m not sure I want a young start-up’s software to be the only place I can find out where I am.

We don’t know what the near future is going to look like—technologically or politically.

Change seems to come more outrageously every year. And the more things change, the more we feel the need to anchor ourselves to the past.