CBR18 Bingo: Refuge – People’s homes are meant to be their refuge, but this book makes the case that their street addresses also have a significant power over their lives.
We usually think of our home addresses as the details we fill out to get mail, but the story of street names and house numbers, and what they say about us and the places we live, are much more complicated than you’d think.
As a child I lived on Anna Road at the intersection with Mary Jane Road. Apparently when the land was sold to be incorporated with the city, the previous owner decided to name the roads after his daughters. More recently, I’ve moved to Atlanta and have been quite puzzled why every other street, road, and lane is called Peachtree (surprisingly, not because of the famous Georgia peach), so this was a timely read for me.
Mask covers a lot of ground and history in this book, discussing how history, politics, race, and class have all impacted the name of the streets we move around on. Each chapter discusses a specific city or country, using it as a case study to tell the broader story. She discusses the importance of having street addresses at all, and the implication of tying up one’s identity and ability to access opportunities and societal nets with the specific place where you live.
And after finishing this book, I decided to make a more concerted effort to learn how to get around this new city without satnav, so there’s that.
