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

There is no international standard for addressing house locations. (Though Google plus codes and "three words" mechanisms have tried.) Common addressing is a relatively new innovation first created to facilitate taxation. 

The United States was one of the first places to implement standardize grids in places like Manhattan and Philadelphia. That quickly spread to development in other parts of the country. Chicago rationalized the disparate names from many annexed cities into a common grid. The sizes of grids differs from city to city. Salt Lake City has very wide blocks. Portland has small blocks. However, not all places in the US have grids or even addresses. There are many areas such as rural West Virginia that still do not have street addresses. You need to ask locals for specific directions to find a place.

Other countries have different scheme. In Japan, addresses tend to be block based. (One theory is that this came out of the "blocks" that students use to write Kanji. In some places house numbers are added in the order that houses are built, not necessarily where they are.

Naming of streets can be a huge source of conflict. The United States has many numbered streets, while other countries shun them. Naming streets after important historical figures is common, but often leads to conflict when those figures go out of favor. Streets after Civil War veterans are have come and gone. Martin Luther King streets have popped up after his death. (Though many are in fairly impoverished neighborhoods. Was the street placed in a poor neighborhood or was their disinvestment because of the street name?) The author even mentions that one year 40% of all business by New York City council involved street name changes. People do seem to care a lot.