It sounds like a U2 song. Or maybe a poetic metaphor for getting lost in the desert. But for about four billion people on this planet, streets with no name aren't a vibe—they’re a bureaucratic nightmare that keeps them trapped in a cycle of "invisible" poverty.
Think about your morning. You probably ordered something on Amazon, or maybe you just checked the weather for your specific zip code. You have an identity because your house has a number and your street has a sign. Now, imagine trying to open a bank account when your "address" is just "the blue house near the big mango tree."
It doesn't work. Banks say no. Emergency services can't find you. You can't even vote in some places because you don't "exist" on a map.
The invisible map of the modern world
We take the grid for granted. If you live in Manhattan, you're on a numbered grid. If you're in London, you're dealing with ancient, winding lanes that at least have names like "Pudding Lane." But go to the outskirts of Lima, Peru, or the sprawling settlements in Nairobi, and the system breaks.
Actually, it never existed there to begin with.
Roughly half the world lives on streets with no name. This isn't just a "developing world" issue, either. There are rural pockets in West Virginia and indigenous lands in the Southwest United States where mail delivery is a pipe dream because the dirt roads aren't in the system.
When a street has no name, the economy stops at the entrance of that neighborhood.
Why naming things is so incredibly hard
You’d think you could just go out there with a bucket of paint and a wooden board, right?
Wrong.
Naming a street is an intensely political act. In post-apartheid South Africa, renaming streets was a way to reclaim history, but it sparked years of bitter legal battles. In many cities, naming a street requires municipal approval, historical vetting, and—most importantly—money.
Then there’s the technical side.
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Traditional surveying is slow. It takes years. By the time a government surveyor maps a new neighborhood in a fast-growing city like Lagos, three more neighborhoods have popped up next to it. Technology is trying to bridge the gap, but even Google Maps struggles with "organic" urban growth.
The Google Plus Codes and What3Words experiment
A few years ago, Google introduced Plus Codes. It’s basically a short alphanumeric code based on latitude and longitude. It gives every 3-meter square on Earth a unique ID.
- It’s free.
- It’s digital.
- It works offline.
Then you have What3Words. They divided the world into 57 trillion squares and gave each one a three-word address. Like apple.banana.chair. It’s clever, and some emergency services in the UK actually use it now to find hikers who are lost.
But there’s a catch.
Locals don't say, "Hey, come over to apple.banana.chair." They say, "I’m by the pharmacy." Technology often ignores how humans actually navigate. If a tech solution doesn't account for local culture, it’s just another layer of digital noise.
The life-or-death stakes of an address
Let’s get real for a second. This isn't just about getting your Uber Eats on time.
In 2016, a study looked at the impact of residential addressing in developing urban areas. They found that when a household gets a formal address, their perceived "tenure security" skyrockets. Basically, if the government gives your street a name, they’re admitting you have a right to live there.
You’re less likely to be evicted.
You can finally get a utility bill in your name.
That bill? That’s your ticket to the modern world. It’s the "proof of address" every bank on the planet asks for. Without it, you’re forced to use predatory lenders or keep your cash under a mattress.
And then there's the ambulance factor.
In many unplanned settlements, if someone has a heart attack, the family has to carry them to a main road. Why? Because the ambulance driver literally cannot find the house. Streets with no name are quite literally killing people because response times are tripled when "the third left after the yellow gate" is the only direction available.
Why some people prefer staying off the map
It’s not all one-sided.
There is a flip side to this. Privacy.
In some parts of the world, being "unmapped" is a defense mechanism. If the tax collector can’t find you, he can’t tax you. If the police can’t find you, they can’t harass you. For some marginalized communities, the "legibility" of a street name feels like a trap.
James C. Scott wrote a brilliant book called Seeing Like a State. He argues that governments want to map everything so they can control it. When you name a street, you’re making it "legible" to the state. For people living on the fringes, that legibility is a double-edged sword.
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They want the ambulance. They don't necessarily want the census taker.
The high cost of being nowhere
Economists have actually tried to quantify the cost of "addresslessness."
It’s staggering.
When businesses can’t be located, they can’t scale. You can't run a delivery-based business. You can't get insurance because the insurance company can't assess the risk of a location they can't find.
Honestly, it’s a form of economic apartheid.
We see this in the "Digital Divide," but the "Physical Address Divide" is arguably more fundamental. If you don't have a spot on the map, you’re basically a ghost in the global economy.
Moving beyond the wooden sign
So, how do we fix it?
It’s not just about more signs. It’s about interoperability.
A street name is useless if the post office uses one map, the water company uses another, and the emergency services use a third.
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We need a unified approach. Some countries are getting it right. Ghana, for example, launched a national digital addressing system a few years ago. They used GPS to tag every property in the country. It wasn't perfect, and there was plenty of pushback regarding data privacy, but it was a massive step toward financial inclusion.
What you can actually do about it
If you’re living in a place where your street is a mess or doesn't officially exist, you aren't totally powerless.
- Use OpenStreetMap (OSM): This is the Wikipedia of maps. Anyone can edit it. If your street is missing, you can literally go online and draw it in. Many NGOs and disaster relief teams use OSM data because it’s often more accurate than Google’s in rural areas.
- Lobby for local "Micro-Addressing": In some slums, residents have taken to naming their own streets and painting the names on walls. Once a name becomes the "common" name, it's much easier to force the city to recognize it.
- Leverage Plus Codes: If you’re a business owner in an unmapped area, start putting your Google Plus Code on your business cards and social media. It’s a way to create a "digital storefront" even if the city hasn't caught up yet.
The goal isn't just to put names on a map. The goal is to make sure that where you live doesn't determine whether or not you matter to the rest of the world.
Getting rid of streets with no name is one of the most boring, technical, and absolutely vital ways we can actually fight global inequality. It’s time we stopped treating it like a poetic mystery and started treating it like the infrastructure crisis it is.
Start by checking your own neighborhood on OpenStreetMap. If a path is missing, add it. That’s how the grid actually gets built—one person at a time, making sure nobody is left invisible.