Street address systems

It's hard to imagine that some countries still lack uniform street address systems. In Bali, locals use street names accompanied by relative landmarks to find their way around. Unfortunately, this makes everyday conveniences like Google Maps useless unless you know the GPS coordinates of your destination.

While the actual names used in street addresses are unimportant, an agreed upon standard alleviates the need to reinvent the wheel whenever you talk with someone new. In places where government has yet to solve this problem, private companies are attempting to devise their own street address systems. But, without broad adoption, it's hard for people to choose which system to adopt. As a result, no system ends up being used, which is detrimental to everyone. This simple piece of infrastructure is easy to take for granted, but it dramatically improves quality of life.