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from the carefully-choose-your-buckets dept.
My job was to examine blood lead data from our local Hurley Children's Hospital in Flint for spatial patterns, or neighborhood-level clusters of elevated levels, so we could quash the doubts of state officials and confirm our concerns. Unbeknownst to me, this research project would ultimately help blow the lid off the water crisis, vindicating months of activism and outcry by dedicated Flint residents.
As I ran the addresses through a precise parcel-level geocoding process and visually inspected individual blood lead levels, I was immediately struck by the disparity in the spatial pattern. It was obvious Flint children had become far more likely than out-county children to experience elevated blood lead when compared to two years prior.
How had the state so blatantly and callously disregarded such information? To me – a geographer trained extensively in geographic information science, or computer mapping – the answer was obvious upon hearing their unit of analysis: the ZIP code.
ZIP codes – the bane of my existence as a geographer. They confused my childhood friends into believing they lived in an entirely different city. They add cachet to parts of our communities (think 90210) while generating skepticism toward others relegated to less sexy ZIP codes.
A tale to remind the scientists and technologists among us why it's important to do our jobs well.
(Score: 2) by EQ on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:44PM
Why not switch to a better geocoding system? The ZIP code was designed nearly half a century ago, surely we have something better by now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:13PM
I wonder if the USPS would (correctly) deliver a letter with only GPS coordinates.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 21 2016, @04:49PM
I remember an old story of a letter delivered to (translated) "Bum usually near the church's left door".
Some postal workers actually like a challenge.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:27PM
That was once true. The post office has changed a lot since then, though, and I suspect that these days there'd be not the slightest attempt to deliver...it would probably never get near the local carrier.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:44PM
True. The public services are under obligation to be efficient. No wasting time with serving outliers.
The competitors trying to kill USPS even made sure to pay for a law forcing it into being profitable and fully financing pensions, which would take care of any frivolous notions of being an equal service unifying the country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @09:46PM
True, that. These days even properly addressed mail sent to a major metropolitan area will get returned as "unknown addressee" by the knuckle-scrapers at the local post office. It has happened to me at least a couple of times over the last couple of years. The only thing they seem capable of delivering without fail is unsolicited advertising. Gee, I wonder why that might be? My best guess is that it's because they know who their real customers are. Hint: it ain't yer Mom sending you a birthday card.
(Score: 2) by goody on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:59PM
Probably because bulk mailers validate all of their recipient addresses with the USPS address verification/correction systems prior to mailing?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 27 2016, @12:26AM
Or because they contract with USPS to ensure they get delivered no matter what.
Took me six months to get unsubscribed from RedPlum's ad mailers. First they were coming to me at my address, so I unsubscribed. Then they started coming to 'Resident' at my current address, so I unsubscribed again. Guess what they did next? They removed my address (so I can't even attempt to unsubscribe anymore), but still deliver them. Literally the address field is blank, there is no address anywhere on the thing at all, but it still gets delivered consistently. Bulk mailers contract with the USPS to just put one in every box in a specific area or served by specific post offices, so they don't have to get the address right, or give any address at all. If they DO give an address, it's probably just to hide how they're actually getting the things delivered. That's also why bulk mailers are the one thing that's extremely common to find delivered to the 'wrong' address (if you bother to check) -- the mail carrier knows it doesn't matter, they're just supposed to stuff one in every box regardless, so what does it matter if you get your neighbors'?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:28PM
Why not switch to a better geocoding system? The ZIP code was designed nearly half a century ago, surely we have something better by now.
ZIP codes were designed for mail delivery. They still function reasonably well for that. The problem is that they're also a convenient data point that anyone who has your address also knows, and thus they tend to be misappropriated for all sorts of uses they aren't designed for. (Another example beyond this article -- there have been instances where towns outside a major city have been assigned the same first three numbers as the ZIP code of the city itself, resulting in insurance companies charging residents higher "city rates" just because of the numerical similarity in ZIP codes.)
But what's "better"? For statistical analysis, you need something that makes sense for your data. Different types of geographical divisions might be suitable for different applications.
From the article:
More useful are units such as census block groups, wards, planning districts or municipal designations for neighborhoods within a city. Each of these adhere to some temporally consistent, spatially bounded definition, and can more appropriately be used to understand how one neighborhood varies compared to another.
Any or all of these might be appropriate depending on your particular data and application. And ZIP codes might be useful sometimes too. The problem isn't the existence of ZIP codes or their usefulness (since they are still useful), but rather the fact that everyone easily can find your ZIP code and thus use it as a proxy for some more meaningful geographical division, when another division might be more appropriate in that specific application.
Postal addresses (with ZIP codes) are a system already in place for locating people, buildings, etc. to a specific address. Probably what we need are better and more accessible converters to make it easy for those doing data analysis to convert those postal addresses (generally easiest to obtain) into some of the other types of divisions mentioned in the article (and others as well). Presumably some stuff like this may already exist but isn't used widely enough for some reason.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:33PM
ZIP codes are not a geocoding system, and were not meant to be. ZIP codes are a postal distribution coding system. The important part in designing ZIP codes is which post office the letter is delivered to. The ZIP code is sort of equivalent to the IP address of a computer.
Both ZIP codes and IP addresses are of course related to the geographical position of the destination address, but not the same. The post office that delivers your mail need not be the one that is geographically closest to you, nor does your internet traffic necessarily go through the router closest to you.
Asking to replace ZIP codes with a geocoding system is just as wrong as asking to replace IP addresses by a geocoding system. Both are designed so that your packets arrive at the correct destination, not to determine where you are.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday September 21 2016, @05:43PM
Everyone knows their zip code, and most people consider it anonymous enough for surveys of sensitive data. I haven't looked too closely at the blood lead level study but I imagine it asked the users their zip for location. Beyond using their addresses I doubt there is a better commonly used system available.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 21 2016, @08:37PM
The same reason we do not switch to something better than Social Security numbers.
There is such a colossal amount of momentum behind the existing system it is nearly impossible to change.
And for most things, zip codes work fine.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh