CM 168: Deirdre Mask on How Addresses Change Lives

What can a simple street address reveal about a person’s identity, race, wealth and power?

For many of us, an address is something we don't spend a lot of time thinking about. It may be a string of numbers and letters we type into a GPS. A place we call home. Or just a placeholder where we get our mail.

Yet, for others, it can mean much more. A way out of poverty. A signal of economic status. Or an indicator of race and social history.

Street addresses can change lives. Deirdre Mask, author of the book, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, explains, "Billions of people in the world don't have reliable addresses, and having an address is one of the cheapest ways of lifting people out of poverty."

At the same time, Deirdre argues, street addresses don't always change lives for the better. While they can stop epidemics and help the poor get bank accounts, they can also entrench racism and empower authoritarian governments.

In this interview, one of the examples we discuss is the negative stereotype associated with streets name for Martin Luther King, Jr. Deirdre asks, "Is it really that MLK streets all deserve this bad reputation or is it that, because we associate MLK streets with Blackness, that we seem them as bad, whether they're nice or not?" 

Deirdre is a writer, lawyer, and academic. Her work has appeared in publications like, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Economist.

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