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I found this fascinating. Technically, it's an article about voter suppression. But most of it is about the history of how addresses evolved - something I hadn't thought about.
Where the Streets Have No Names, the People Have No Vote
The Enlightenment gave us street addresses and ushered in democracy
By Deirdre Mask
Street names and house numbers weren’t inevitable; they were invented. Almost 250 years ago, for example, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria began to number the homes across her vast realm to enable mass conscription of men to fight her wars.
It would be interesting to take a look at some of America's oldest and most historic cities and then look for number one on a particular street. Probably has some history behind it as far as the buildings and the people who lived there.
It's my understanding that in Japanese cities, house-numbers on a block are assigned in order of the age of the house, and have no relation to the location on the street.
This must be very confusing !
But there are also many police booths/ mini-stations liberally spaced everywhere, where anyone can go to inquire for help.
It's my understanding that in Japanese cities, house-numbers on a block are assigned in order of the age of the house, and have no relation to the location on the street.
This must be very confusing !
But there are also many police booths/ mini-stations liberally spaced everywhere, where anyone can go to inquire for help.
A clever full employment policy?
It is a fascinating topic especially when they determined what is point of origin. In some larger metros you can get easily messed up when a larger metro absorbs some one time small city with its own addresses based on smaller geographic extents and you cross a municipal line and the addresses go to a new point of origin.
Another interesting thing is when during massive industrialization and build out that some cities then had to rename streets based on some over riding E -W N - S orientation from the point of origin. In the Cleveland metro that occurred in 1906. Interesting to see old names on old maps and how it may still influence names of buildings and other landmarks in the urban fabric.
Another anecdotal thing I observed when in Europe is the sidewalks in some cities still have the land surveying pins prominently in the sidewalk to delineate - Vienna comes readily to mind from my most recent travels. I have never noticed this in US cities. It would be interesting to know the history of why these were kept.
Easiest US city I recall from my heavy travel days is the address nomenclature of Salt Lake City where the address incorporates the geo coordinates (I'm sure there are other cities that do this but I don't recall another large metro that does. Although DC uses the quadrant designation which is a truncated variation.
Another pet peeve in older parts of cities is they don't always keep to the standard address numbering convention of 'odd' numbers being North and East sides and 'evens' being South and West sides of streets.
A funny address issue in downtown Cleveland was the former one time 666 Euclid building (a defunct Department store first renovated into office building and now apartments) was renumbered 668. The 'devil's' address would have been a hindrance to marketing.
Another anecdotal thing I observed when in Europe is the sidewalks in some cities still have the land surveying pins prominently in the sidewalk to delineate - Vienna comes readily to mind from my most recent travels. I have never noticed this in US cities. It would be interesting to know the history of why these were kept.
I will often find survey monumentation adjacent to sidewalks, typically in newer areas, in Pennsylvania.
New York State highways typically very clearly monument their right-of-way edges.
When we lived in NJ we had no mail delivery, you had to fetch it at the post office. Few of our neighbors bothered to post address numbers. That was from 1967 to 1972.
Another pet peeve in older parts of cities is they don't always keep to the standard address numbering convention of 'odd' numbers being North and East sides and 'evens' being South and West sides of streets.
I've been wanting to learn and remember that convention. Having read it in your post, I'll have a better chance of doing that.
Napoleon Bonaparte created the even numbers on one side and odd on the other quite ingenious actually
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LOL. 
