https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-address-of-the-future/
"Every time college student Aniket Samudra has to fill out a form, the address
section stumps him. House number, street name, the name of his building — none
of these things apply to him. Which isn’t to say that Samudra doesn’t have a
house. He lives in Laxmi Nagar, a slum in the western Indian city of Pune, in a
cramped one-room home with tin-sheet walls — and no address.
Tens of millions of India’s slum dwellers share this problem, residing in tiny,
poorly marked dwellings that have no unique street address of their own.
Sometimes an entire slum, with thousands of residents, will share a single
address. In a world that often assumes that anyone’s house can be located, this
creates all sorts of problems. Packages and mail don’t arrive at the doorstep.
Firefighters struggle to locate blazes. Even the simple act of inviting someone
to your home can involve a seemingly endless description of trees, shops and
temples at which to turn left or right.
But the bureaucratic consequences are often even more damaging. Not having a
unique address makes it difficult to get a government ID, along with all the
public benefits that bestows. A lack of address can keep bank accounts, voting
rights, even internet access out of reach. Though billions of people have no
official address, the world’s systems are set up as though everyone does.
So recently, when a blue plate with numbers and letters emblazoned on it was
affixed to Samudra’s front door, its modest appearance belied the impact it
would have on his life."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
