Geography Is The U.S. Postal Service: And The ZIP Code!

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The U.S. Postal Service is a foundational part of the United States. And during it's nearly 250 year existence it's delivered a lot of mail! One way in which it's been able to be so effectvie is by carving up the country into ZIP codes, which have since spread far and wide to become a defacto geographic unit for things well beyond carrying mail. Here's the incredibly geography of the U.S. Postal Service!

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hunter question for you to start usoff today. And you might not know
this, but there's a very specificreason why I'm going to ask this question,
which we're going to find out ina second. But that question is,
do you know the Postman's motto?The Postman's motto, I think I
have a paraphrase of it, ifit's what I'm thinking about it. I
think it goes something like through rain, through sleeps, through snow or something

(00:27):
like that. Very close. Yes, So the first of all point of
clarity here, the US Postal Servicedoes not actually have an official motto.
Okay, what I'm about to sayis sort of the unofficial modo that has
been passed around from time to time. There's a whole history sort of behind
it that we're not really going toget into because it's kind of an aside,
but it's close to what you said. So the actual Postman's motto is

(00:51):
neither snow nor rain, nor heatnor gloom of night stays these couriers from
the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Yeah. I was a little close,
but yeah, I didn't quite havethe whole thing. I mean,
you hit the I think the overalltheme of it and the reason why I
wanted to start out with this question. You know, normally we start out
with I would say, maybe amore precise question for our episodes, but

(01:12):
I wanted to start with this episodebecause or this question, because it's it's
very it's highly geographic, right,it's talking about the actual physical elements as
people move around to well deliver mailto everybody's houses. And I thought that
was really cool. That's interesting howthat ties. That ties really well into
to our episode today, which,as I'm sure everybody knows by now,

(01:36):
but is all about the US PostalService. I believe that was a motto
that was slung around a little bitmore often, you know, in the
nineteen hundreds, so to speak,if you can believe it, Hunter,
The actual phrase comes from well,I have it right here, sitting here.
This is coming from the USPS website. The phrase comes from book eight,

(01:56):
paragraph ninety eight of the Persian Warsby Herodotus, a Greek historian.
So it is I didn't see thatcoming. Yeah, yeah, I don't
think anybody would have anticipated herodata showingup in our episode on the US post
Service. But here we are.He gets around. All right, let's
let's jump to today's episode. Solet me get my notes back up here.

(02:20):
Are we talking about the US PostService today? So I would say
there's a variety of reasons. Wekind of hinted that this last week a
little bit, But overall, Iwould say that there's a and there's an
underlying geography that's that's sort of attachedto the Post Service that can't really be
ignored, right, I think youwould probably agree with that. I totally
agree, absolutely, Yeah, Imean it's a it's a service that I

(02:42):
mean, they go everywhere, right, They they deliver mail to basically every
single house, basically every single buildingthat's ever been constructed, at least with
an official address. Obviously there's alot of people who don't have official addresses,
but still like they're going to alot of places. You know,
there's a place if you have ahouse that's sort of in the very far
reaches you know of northern Montana,you're likely still getting mail, It's right,

(03:07):
unless they've got seaplanes and stuff intheir in their fleet I think probably
or something, and they're bringing youyour mail even if you live in a
relatively remote location. Yeah, Iknow, granted, you know you have
to be connected to their network insome capacity. Right, if you want
to go out and you want tocreate sort of a completely off the grid

(03:27):
shack in the middle of Alaska,and you don't ever tell the US Post
services that you're there, they're probablynot going to find you, Right,
That's that's the time where you geta PO box. I think at that
exactly that said, if you dowant them to if you do want them
to deliver mail to you, andyou're within a relatively easy reach, now

(03:47):
relatively easy for them is actually canbe pretty extreme. But you know,
you're not absolutely impossible to get to. They'll probably find a way to get
mail to you. So it's veryimpressive. I would say that the links
at which they go absolutely Yeah.Well, and it's a service, right.
The government feels like there should bea government sponsored service that allows people

(04:09):
to communicate, and so that's aservice. Yeah, yep, it is
a service. It is kind ofrun by the government. We're going to
talk a little bit about that.Yeah, it's a little bit a little
bit different than what we're maybe normallyused to with regards to our federal agencies.
We are going to talk about somekey facts and statistics a little bit
with regards to the US post Service, but that's a little bit later.

(04:30):
We're not going to do too muchof that. We're also going to talk
a lot about sort of the geographythat the US Postal Service has created.
What what do you think I'm talkingabout here, Hunter, I'm thinking the
zip code is what you probably before. Yeah, right, Yeah, we're
going to talk so much about thezip code. In fact, by the
end of this episode, listener,you're probably going to know far more about

(04:54):
the zip code than you ever thoughtpossible. To be honest, then you
probably ever really wanted to know aboutthe zip code. But this is the
Geography Podcast, and that's sort ofour bread and butter, right, that's
they literally created their own geographic boundaries. They carved up the entire country into
these these geographic areas, absolutely right. And there's a lot that goes into
that, right, And there's alot of other now people and agencies and

(05:15):
everything else that sort of use thatthose same sort of delineation, you know,
units that the Post Office created notfor any purpose other than their own
thing. And that's a whole that'sthe whole thing we're going to get into.
Finally, we're not going to getinto this too much in today's episode,
not really at all aside from this, but I thought it was worth
calling out that the US Post Servicein recent years has become a bit of

(05:36):
a political lightning rod, which Ithink just illustrates the importance of its role
within the United States. Right asyou know, we live here in Oregon,
we've had voting by mail for well, I'm actually not sure when voting
by mail in Oregon became a thing, but certainly decades's right, Yeah,

(05:56):
since living here, so I movedhere in twenty ten. Since living here,
it's never been and I've never notvoted by mail and it's wonderful.
I love it. But I wantedto call that out as like, Okay,
there's a there's a geography here aroundthe elections too, and we're not
going to really talk about that intoday's episode. There's probably a future episode
down the linehere we're going to talka little bit about election stuff. I'm
not sure what that episode's going tolook like. Maybe the US Post Service

(06:18):
makes an appearance there and we'll talka little bit about that. There's a
little electoral college episode coming up orsomething like that. College's a little voting
by mail. We'll see, we'llsee what makes it in what doesn't.
It's also worth pointing out that whilewe're talking about the US Postal Service today,
the United States Post Service, itisn't the only postal service in the
world. We are going to talkabout some international postal services at the end

(06:41):
of our episode. Today today's episode, it is largely about the US post
Service because one we're here too.I think it makes for a really compelling
story about how things came together.So all I has to say is,
if you're not here in the US, just know that your your own post
service probably has a pretty interesting storyand has probably done similar things to the
US posts. In fact, Iknow, for example, with respects to
the zip code, that places likethe UK and Germany and Japan have their

(07:05):
own versions of of this. That'sright, Yeah, I'm familiar with with
with with that phenomenon. Oh yeah, so let's dive in. First question,
Yes, HUNTERT, what is theUS Postal Service? The US Postal
Service, the way I think aboutit, is some kind of government agency

(07:25):
that's charged with mediating communication between individualsand companies within the country and then also
facilitating communication to other countries. Aswell. That's a great way to put
it. In fact, I thinkthat's one way that the actual purpose of
the postal service and its original purposekind of gets lost on people now in

(07:48):
that the postal service is I mean, it's a communications organization, right a'bsolutely,
that's it's I mean, that's stillwhat it is today. But I
don't think we really think of itbecause now we have these you know,
device and things that allow communication instantly, and you know, we more associate
a company such as you know ATand T as a communications company or even

(08:09):
like an Internet service provider, right, but US Postal service at its core
is still a communications organization. They'redelivering communication, you know, letters and
you know packages. These are alldifferent ways to communicate with people. Yeah,
it wasn't that long ago where that'sthat was the gig, right,
that was the way that you couldcommunicate. That's that everybody got their bills
that way, people corresponded that way. And as you're suggesting, you know,

(08:33):
I think for some people who aremaybe younger today, the mail might
not figure at all in their lives. Probably not. Yeah, I mean
you get some Christmas cards, youknow, the end of the year,
or a lot of people do.I guess yeah, that's for me.
That's about the extent that things are. And and the occasional postcard, which
is very cool. Join a postcardclub if you if you can. I

(08:56):
think they're very fun. But let'sI think it's important to sort of ground
ourselves in sort of what the USPostal Service is, because in so many
ways the US Postal Service is actuallyfairly unique from other government agencies. And
you hit on that it feels likea government agency. It kind of is,

(09:16):
but it's not a federal agency inthe same way that you know the
Department of Transportation is, for example. So instead it is something that's classified
as an quote unquote independent agency ofthe executive branch of the United States federal
government. And this is this meansit's responsible for providing and and as you
know, being an independent ag it'sresponsible for providing postal service in the US

(09:39):
It's insular areas and its associated states. So this would include the US territories
of Guam, American Samoa, andNorthern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and
the US Virgin Islands, in additionto all fifty states and the District of
Columbia and the District of Columbia.It also means that the US Post Service
is to deliver mail to every USmilitary base around the world, So that

(10:05):
does that does extend their footprint openmore quite a bit. We're not going
to talk a lot about how manyUS military bases there are around the world.
That could be a fascinating episode someday, but just no listener that those
things are scattered across the world.It's also one of the few government agencies

(10:26):
that are explicitly authorized by the Constitutionof the United States. So within the
Constitution, this would be the documentthat sort of establishes everything about the United
States, right, Yeah, alot of the land. So within the
the US Constitution, there is acause called the Postal Clause, and this

(10:46):
explicitly grants Congress the power to establishpost offices and postal roads. And so
there's actually a lot of power inbeing a part of the official constitution because
unlike you know, other branches,there's you know sometimes that you hear sort
of a rumor or desire you know, to do away with you know,
whatever branch of government. Eliminate theDepartment of Education or something like that,

(11:09):
eliminate the Department of Education. Underno way would Congress be able to simply
eliminate the US Postal Service without aconstitutional amendment. Yeah, it's in the
Constitution. It has to be there, But that doesn't mean that Congress hasn't
changed the way in which the USPostal Service operates and so today, because

(11:35):
it's that independent federal agency, theUS Postal Service is self sustaining and is
kind of required to be self sustaining. This means that it has its own
revenue forecast, it has profit onlosses, it has these things that we
more commonly associate with I guess,I guess just a normal company like I

(11:56):
get, you know, I usedAT and T earlier, But AT and
T, right, this is acompany that has to report, you know,
profits and losses, and if theydon't make that money back, the
Congress can bail them out, right, And that's happened in the past.
But it's it's not the same asthe US Department of Transportation, Right,
the US Department of Transportation isn't requiredto generate its own revenue. Right,

(12:18):
they can operate in the red inthe way that the Post Office isn't supposed
to do. They have to bepaying their services have to pay for itself.
They can't operate at a loss exactly, right, I mean, and
they can operate at a loss,and they frequently do. But again,

(12:39):
if they do operate at a loss, they have to go and make the
case to Congress to basically close thatgap. Right. The difference being,
you know, Department of Transportation orInterior or you know whatever, they're given
a set budget of you know,let's say five hundred million dollars per year.
I don't know what any of theirbudgets actually are, but say five
hundred million dollars per year, that'swhat they're going to go out and spend.

(13:01):
And then that's it. There's nothere's no profit and loss necessarily at
any point involved in that situation.Right, Maybe for some minor parts of
their projects, right, you know, maybe the us DOT has some sort
of toll program and that has someprofit and losses, but it's like overall,
it's not part of the overall equation. Okay, big difference. Amtrak

(13:22):
would be the only other government independentgovernment agency that operates in a sim similar
manner. And we've talked about Amtrakin the past and past episodes. We've
talked a lot about Amtrak check Out, Go check Out. Any one of
those very fun high speed rail Ithink was one of them. There might
have been a few others. Yeah, they seem to wind their way into

(13:43):
our episodes. But I'm a bigtrain nerd so that's that's probably normal,
I think. So let's talk alittle bit about the history of the US
Postal Service, how it became anactual thing. So, before the official
establishment of a national postal service,mail in the United States was hand build
sporadically, often through kind of informalarrangements, So letters were typically carried by

(14:07):
friends, merchants. Native Americans wouldoften trade you know, different sort of
letters and stuff after that, youknow, before any sort of formal organizational
structure, and these were often traveledor brought you know, either by foot
or by horse. Okay, Andso this would be sort of you know,
fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred, seventeenhundreds. Native Americans had probably been

(14:28):
doing this for a long time,you know, well before any sort of
documented proof of any sort of youknow, that system probably existed, right,
because it's just communication, that's allit is, right. But in
seventeen seventy five, during the SecondContinental Congress, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the
first Postmaster General. Did you knowthis is one of his another feather and

(14:50):
his many of his many in hiscu I knew who was involved in many
things, but I didn't realize thatbeing postmaster General was one of his titles.
Yeah, clearly it was. Idid not know this before I started
pulling this episode together either. Iwas like, well, okay, there
you go, there's another one.So Franklin would set the foundations of the
postal service we know today, whichincluded a more organized mail route system from

(15:13):
Massachusetts down to Georgia, the establishmentof more reliable schedules, and the creation
of a standardized rate chart based ondistance and item weight. Right, so
this is this is basically the stampsystem, right, right, how much
does it cost to get you know, one thing from here to there?
It's going to depend on well,where's it going and how much does the

(15:33):
way always? That's right now?Today? You know, with it can
be also be like well how fastdo you want to be there? Do
you want to be tracked? Andyou know, right, you get some
more options. Do you want toensure your your message or whatever? Yeah,
yeah, you get a little addons here and there. Following the
American Revolution, the postal Service becameenshrined in the Constitution, which we already

(15:54):
talked about, which empowered Congress toestablish post offices and postal roads. I
believe the US Postal Service is,in addition to US DOT and some Department
of Interior agencies are is one ofthe only agencies federal agencies that's permitted to
construct and maintain its own road system. So postal roads, postal roads.

(16:18):
Right, it's to be similar toforest roads, which the US Forestry Service
manages. And then of course usdotwo handles, you know, the things
that most of us travel on,which would be like the Inner States.
Right. The acknowledgment of this inthe Constitution underscored the importance of mail as
a vital tool for communication that wasessential to the establishment of a brand new

(16:41):
country. Right. So somebody,maybe it was Benjamin Franklin, I'm not
exactly sure who who came up withthe idea, but somebody at some point
was like, if we're going tobe our own country, we need to
have communication tools that are organized andwe can sort of communicate effectively, because
well, I think they already knewthat they were going to be a really

(17:03):
big country, like the thirteen Colonieswere already quite large, right, right,
So we need to see your communication, we need to be able to
disseminate information. And then that alsosort of reiffies the fact that this is
a functioning state, of functioning governmentexactly, which is always very important,
especially for a new a new country, right, It's you want to establish

(17:23):
that you are legitimate, You're ableto do things that everybody else can,
all that kind of stuff. Soin seventeen ninety two, the Postal Service
Act formally created the post Office Department. This act also included provisions that safeguarded
the privacy of personal correspondences and allowednewspapers to be mailed at very low rates,
supporting the spread of information across thevast distances of the at the time

(17:48):
the young country, right. Andso again this sort of ties into some
other core fundamental aspects of the UnitedStates, especially in that early early years,
like you know, freedom of press, you know, freedom of speech,
you know, sort of like tieson into that that these these things
also come with stipulations that the federalgovernment should be enabling the dispersion of these
materials right for the functioning throughout theYeah, it helps the country function is

(18:14):
probably what they're thinking. Yep.Yeah. So throughout the nineteenth century,
this would be the eighteen hundreds,the post office innovated further in response to
growing and increasingly mobile population. Sothe introduction of the steamboat and railroad for
mail transportation vastly improved the speed andreliability of mail service. That's probably not
surprised. Basically, the rail changeda lot of things during this period of

(18:37):
time. And then there was thePony Express. Have you ever heard of
the Pony Express? I have heardof the Pony Express. I'm not sure
I know any actual details other thanthat there's somebody on a horse who is
bringing mail places. I mean,I don't have too much here. I'm
probably missing some important information there,but I don't have too much here on
the Pony Express. But just knowthat it was a it was. It

(19:00):
was relatively short lived, but itdid become sort of a legendary symbol of
the rugged, sort of western areasof the country that were very vast and
the only way that people could getmail because there wasn't trains crisscrossing the area
and there weren't roads at this pointin time. Either was that a series
of stations were set up where arider would get mail, deliver it to

(19:25):
the next station, and then sortof relay race it to whatever its final
destination was. And this is howsort of all these little little like I
don't know what you would call themnow, there's like saloon towns from like
the old West, would get mail. Yeah, yeah, these these towns
that sort of linked different places together. And I'm guessing this wasn't a daily
mail service probably if you were,I would not. I would not,

(19:48):
I would not, guess I haven't. I didn't check that, but that
would be pretty impressive. This sothe Pony Express, though, was relatively
short lived, as I already mentioned, because it only existed it existed basically
for a short aeria of time upuntil the transcontinental telegraph system was in place,
which it just didn't have that muchtime, and then it was kind
of already obsolete. So I thinkit's it's legacy has endured far longer than

(20:11):
it itself obviously, Yeah, forsure. And so the telegraph situation that
was separate from those are companies operatingseparate from the postal service? Yes,
yeah, right, So that's alreadygraphetition for the postal competition. Yeah,
yeah, the US Postal Service.I couldn't find anything in the history,
but maybe somebody knows, but Icouldn't find them ever, sort of being

(20:33):
interested in sort of what we tellwhat we'd say today is with telecommunications,
right, sort of telephone lines,internet, telegraphs, that kind of stuff.
I never really saw any mention ofthem being involved. That's not to
say they weren't, It just didn'treally hit sort of what I was trying
to get at. The post OfficeDepartment transformed into the United States Postal Service

(20:53):
to the US in nineteen seventy one, a change that marked a transition from
a cabinet department to a self sustainingindependent federal agency. So again we talked
about this earlier, that they needto be self sustaining, they have profit
and loss. This happened in nineteenseventy one, so not that long ago.
We're now that long ago, Yeah, I mean compared to how how
old it is, right, it'sright, you know, two hundred plus

(21:17):
years. It's only been a selfsustaining independent agency for forty or fifty fifty
three, yeah, fifty three.Yeah, there we go. The reorganization
was part of a broader effort tomake the service more efficient and financially viable,
and I think at that point itwas sort of looked at as maybe
a not a financially viable agency whereit could self sustain itself, but also

(21:41):
bring money into the United States governmentas a whole. Because again, nineteen
seventy one, it's a very differenttime. There's still a lot of mail
going around and there's a lot ofmoney to be made doing that. Facilitating
commerce is really one of the bigthings here, not just general complication,
but for businesses to operate absolutely.So this would come with some key innovations,

(22:03):
the big one being the ZIP code, which we're going to talk all
about in a little bit. Sowe're going to hold on to that first
second. But today the US PostalService operates one of I would argue,
one of the most impressive logistical anddelivery networks in the entire world. And
that's not to say that other postservices aren't also very impressive. They are,
but this is also still very impressiveand so and it maintains it does

(22:27):
maintain that it's mission to provide postalservices to every American citizen US citizen,
irrespective of geography, at a uniformprice and quality. And so again,
if you're unless you want to bedisconnected from the US Post Service, you
can get your mail delivered to you. And perhaps most importantly, if you're

(22:47):
that person in the middle of Alaskaor northern Montana, very far away,
it's still going to be the sameprice as if you were in the heart
of New York or Los Angeles orsomething. YEA, for packages, maybe
that changes a little bit. Butyeah, there's there's a stamp that you
use, and you can use itwherever within the system, and that's the
flat price, which increases once ina while, but it increases for everybody.

(23:12):
Yep. So, according to theUSPS's own statistics, in twenty twenty
two, the agency generated nearly seventynine billion dollars in revenue, but it
was not profitable. I see,it was about it fell about six billion
dollars short from profitability. Not supergreat for an agency that's supposed to be
self sustanding, but you know,it is what it is. Yes,

(23:34):
it had about five hundred and seventeenthousand employees. Again as of twenty twenty
two. I'm not sure how that'schanged since then. And in twenty twenty
two it carried one hundred and twentyseven point three billion pieces of mail,
And so I mapped this out alittle bit, but that's about two hundred
and forty six thousand pieces of mailfor each employee that the that the US

(23:59):
Post Service had, which is phenomenal. I mean, it makes sense,
right each day they're probably carrying thousandsof things around their network, but it's
still it's it's incredible. I can'thelp but think, what percentage of this
is what we sometimes call junk mail? Oh that today, I'm going to
guess a lot high percentage, veryhigh. So with that, let's go

(24:22):
ahead and jump to our very firstad break. We're going to talk all
about the ZIP code when we comeback, so it should be very fun
and for people who are like Idon't really need to know about the zip
code, believe me, it's quiteinteresting. What you'd be happy you stuck
around. Yeah, all right,we will be right back, and we're

(24:49):
back. We are talking about thegeography of the US Postal Service today.
We just ran through a bunch ofhistory and sort of the beginnings of the
US Postal Service. Now we're goingto launch into a a riveting discussion on
the ZIP code, which which isgonna be really fun, I promise so.
And by the way, I don'tknow how many people know this,

(25:10):
but ZIP. You know, zIP actually stands for Zone Improvement Plan.
I did not know that that wasThat's that's news to me. Yeah,
I didn't know it either. Ialways knew it had to stand for something
because it was all in capital letters, but I never really thought too much
about it. I think in alot of countries it's just called postal code
or something you know, similar tothat, and obviously varying different languages.

(25:33):
But for here, it's the ZIPcode. So but yeah, anyways,
that's that's what it's called. Solet's talk about the zip code and what
it even is. Hunter, firstquestion, what can you tell us about
the zip code? All right?So my understanding of the zip code is
that it is a designation, ageographic designation that allows the US Post Office
to figure out how to sort throughall these billions of pieces of mail that

(25:59):
we talked about before. So there'sa geographic distinction. That's how they organize
everything and how they keep the systemrunning. That's a really good guess,
and we're going to talk about whatit actually is before we do that.
Though, I do think it's importantto note that the zip code, despite
its many uses today outside of postaldelivery, which we're gonna get to in

(26:21):
a little bit as well, isnothing more than a series of convenient routes
and points for any given delivery path. And I think that's an important distinction
because even though what you just saidis mostly true, Hunter, and we've
even said, you know, sortof in this episode, you know how
it's sort of a geographic boundary.It's sort of an area that would be,

(26:45):
you know, sort of synonymous witha polygon on a map, right,
It's really not. It's more ofa route, huh. It's a
route. It's a route with pointlocations, which is you know, at
listener, if you're if as you'relistening to this. This is probably a
little hard to understand or even hardto understand why this might be important at
all, but it is important becausea lot of times, you know,

(27:06):
boundaries or geographic locations area locations areare carved up based on what's happening on
the ground to some extent, andwhen you're doing it based on just a
route. You're not thinking about sortof the space and place in the same
way. And so that's again amap that we would see of postal codes

(27:27):
suggests something different a little bit right, because it suggests that there's the polygon
type situation that you talked about.I guess it would be pretty difficult to
represent all these various routes on amap of the United States get really squarely
squiggly. Yeah, yeah, that'san interesting thing to think about, that
it's more of a route, althoughthat's not the way it's usually represented.

(27:52):
Absolutely, yes, so, andI think the key thing to take away
here is that the zip codes arenot based on any statistically meaningful underlying data.
Okay, hold on to that thought, because that's going to be an
important caveat as we talk about especiallywhat what some of what some of the
other uses for the zip code are. Okay, now, Hunter, if

(28:15):
you were to take a wild guess, I don't expect you to know this.
If you would take a wild guestabout how many zip codes would you
say are in existence today? Oh, I should have prepped for this knowing
that we were doing this episode.How many zip codes are there in the
United States? Honestly, I don'teven know how I would answer this question.
I would be like, I don'tknow, a bajillion, yeah,

(28:38):
forty thousand, Wow, No way, that is a really good answer because
or really good guests, because there'sactually forty one thousand, seven hundred and
four zip codes today's which is prettygood. Guess. That was a really
good guest. I don't know howyou honed in on that, whether it
was just a wild sort of yeah, thinking approximately fifty states, even though

(29:02):
I know there's other territories and thatmaybe on average it was close to a
thousand, but probably a little bitless. So that was my thinking,
Great, guess, so I needto go on a game show with this
kind of talent, Yeah, Ithink. I mean, that's definitely a
good you know, it's the pricesright rule. It's like the closest without
going over right kind of thing thatI think you would have won that right.

(29:23):
So, now that we have thatout of the way, let's go
over how we got to the zipcode in the first place. And I
want to highlight that much of theinformation that I have here is coming from
a very convenient for me white paperfrom the US Postal Service. Itself called
the Untold Story of the zip code. And so I don't know if I
could have found a better source forthis. I would like to hold this

(29:44):
document myself. I think it isquite dry, I assure you, but
it was very good for me topull out information sort of highlights. Right,
is that what's about to happen hereexactly? So at present and according
to this white paper, which isdated back to thirteen by the way,
so it's a little it's a littleold. It's about ten years old.
At this point, the postal Servicedelivers forty percent of the world's mail to

(30:07):
five percent of the world's population.So it's a task that's really, you
know, daunting, just because ofthe world's mail. Of the world's mail.
Again, this is coming from theirown white paper. I'm not sure
where their sts are coming from,but you know, I mean, you
know, maybe we have more junkmail here. I don't know. Yeah,
interesting, But if we think aboutit, this this task is made

(30:29):
very daunting by the by the geographicsize of the United States. Now,
obviously there are other places that arereally huge in size as well, Brazil,
Russia, China, Canada just tothe north of US, right,
these are all very vast places.So this is not to diminish any of
those postal services, but it isjust highlight the four largest countries in the
world, I think pretty much,of which the United States comes in three

(30:51):
after Russia and Canada, and Ithink Brazil is next. So yeah,
yeah, up there, And thatis true. So so the US postal
Service, they're their original sorting methodsdepended on solely on local addresses and hand
sorting, right, So mail wouldcome in, you would have a mail
carrier. It's like, okay,this is going to New York. Obviously
we're going to send it over there, and then the local carriers would have

(31:14):
to discern where that is right basedon their own knowledge of the area.
So it's very sort of local knowledgeoriented. And before the advent of the
zip code and automated sorting, ofcourse, the average mailed letter was handled
by anywhere from eight to ten postalemployees. So wow, you send it
out from your place, you know, here in Portland, and it's going
to New York. You know atsome point that's you know, somebody is

(31:37):
looking at that and trying to discernwhere it's going, right. By eight
or ten people are trying to enterten. People have to get and be
engaged in that process of figure outwhere this letter is going exactly. Yeah,
this manual sorting became even more laboriousas customer's use of mail grew by
almost one hundred and sixty percent betweennineteen forty nine and nineteen sixty five,

(31:59):
So a lot more male sort ofspiking during that period probably coincides with the
overall wealth increase of the country.Of course that's not felt by everybody equally,
but generally there's an overall wealth increase, which means people are probably moving
to farther locations, So families movingfarther apart, more males criss crossing the
country, all that kind of stuff. There's a housing boom, right like

(32:22):
that goes along with the there's ahousing boom right right, yeah, yeah,
baby boom yeah. Everything. Andso this is about the time,
so between nineteen forty and nineteen sixtyfive, this is sort of the time
when the US Post Service is startingto conceive of this idea of the zip
code. Okay, we need toorganize our country in a way that just
makes more sense, because we can'twe can't keep doing this. There's too

(32:43):
much mail going around the country.It's getting sort of unwieldly, and so
they start thinking about this idea,let's maybe create a ZIP code or the
precursors to that. And apparently executivesat AT and T, which I think
is different from the AT and thatexists today, or maybe it's the same.
I don't know. They've gone throughsome breakdowns, yeah, yeah,

(33:04):
mergers. But apparently executives at ATand T, which was a corporation at
the time, warned the US PostalService that they had a lot of difficulty
getting people to use area codes fortelephone numbers and that the public might likewise
be hesitant to adopt the ZIP code. Interesting, so so AT and T,
it was American Telegraph and maybe Telegram, which should probably fact check that.

(33:29):
But I think I think they're involvedin sending this. This is the
rival really in a lot of waysto the most. Yeah, I mean
it's a rival. It's because yeah, they're all they're all inside the communications
game. But I think they're alsolike, hey, maybe like we just
we just had to do this,you know, get everybody to adopt an
area code for the telephone service,and they're not. And it didn't work

(33:52):
out super well for us. Youknow, it's very hard to get people
to adopt it. Well, it'shard to get people to adopt really anything
that's not really their choice. Andso they're I think they're just saying like,
hey, like you know, weknow this is a thing that you're
trying to do, and you knowit might not be the best idea because
it's shit. Yet another number.What is the American tele Telegraph Company?

(34:14):
Sorry to interrupt, but the AmericanTelephone and Telephone and tele Company. So
I was not correct the close whichjust seems to be they This is sort
of an aside, but I thinkAT and T would make a fascinating episode
one day, because that was thecompany that I think got too big and
then got broken up intol the whatthey called the baby bells. Right,
yeah, no, we should definitelyrevisit this. Yeah, so anyways,

(34:37):
well maybe something that. So anyways, the US Postal Service actually wasn't that
worried because they had looked at astudy of the West German postal cold rollout
in the early nineteen sixties. Thezip code, of course, came out
in sort of the mid mid nineteensixties, and it found that the country

(34:57):
achieved an eighty percent public adoption ratewithin its first year of use. Now,
this came with a very organized planby the West German Postal Service,
right they They had an extensive promotioncampaign. They did a lot of work
beforehand, and this is something thatthe US Postal Service is going to adopt
as well. Okay, and sohave you ever heard of a character called

(35:22):
mister Zip? I think I knowwho you're talking about because I remember,
and this would have been from whenI was a kid. There's this cartoonish
character who's kind of leaning in onedirection because he's moving very quickly with a
satchel of mail on his side.He's got sort of really big eyes smiling.

(35:43):
Is that a zip? That isone? Mister zip? I do
know? So the US Postal Service, they they did a lot of work,
right they They they created a wholelittle cartoon about it. They they
sent out these mailers. In fact, you can see some of these mailers
maybe on wick I can't remember whereI saw them. Actually might have been
inside this untold story of the zipcode. But they sent out these mailers

(36:05):
that sort of had like very fungraphics attached to them saying hey, here's
a new thing. It's going tohelp organize things. This is sort of
part of your place, all thiskind of stuff, and so that work
paid off tremendously well. So theZIP code was rolled out officially in nineteen
sixty three. Apparently by nineteen sixtynine, which is just six years later,
about ninety percent of the public supportedthe use of the ZIP code,

(36:30):
and about eighty three percent were activelyusing it. Now, that's not quite
as quick as West Germany, right, but still pretty fast solid given the
size of the US. So theZIP was from the sixties, then,
is that what we're talking about.Mister Zip was rolled out probably maybe the
process probably started well beforehand, butI'm not sure. I'd actually don't have

(36:51):
data on when they marketing campaigns rolledout, just trying to guess the aesthetic
of the character and you know,match it up against my understanding of the
aesthetics of various decades. But yeah, fifties, sixties, clearly it is.
It is interesting. I'm looking atmister Zip right now, and I
mean, it's a cute little cartoon. It's very rudimentary. It's almost like,

(37:15):
I mean, this is not thisis not what I would say is
like Disney quality. Oh yeah,Disney was a thing definitely more basic than
I remember now that i'm looking atit as well. Yeah, it's I
mean, I don't know, theyprobably didn't have a big budget, I
don't know, and cartooning was justa much more, you know, rudimentary
sort of art form at the time. So I suppose. Yeah, But

(37:37):
I mean snow White came out inthe thirties and that blows this away for
sure. I mean, you know, no offense to the zip family.
But anyways, yeah, you're doingmister zip pretty dirty right now. And
so so I already mentioned this.USPS would officially begin the rollout of the
zip code in nineteen sixty three,and it was based on an early your

(38:00):
system of postal codes used in largecities and expanded it to a five digit
system. So if you're looking atyour ZIP code right now, so let's
take you know, my ZIP codehere is nine seven two three one or
something like that. I should actuallyknow it. Yeah, this is how
little I have to send mail,right But anyway, so those first three

(38:23):
numbers correspond with the sectional center ofwhatever it is. It's usually aligned with
states, although sometimes states can havemultiples and then those last two numbers are
the local area. Those those lasttwo numbers are what these originally spawned from,

(38:43):
and they were typically only associated withlarger cities. And so you would
if you find an old piece ofmail from the early part of the nineteen
hundreds, it'll say, let's sayit's coming from Minneapolis, and it's like
Minneapolis, here's the address, MinneapolisComma. And then there's two numbers,
you know, eleven Comma, Isee USA or something like that. So
they kept two numbers and then theyput the regional numbers in front of them

(39:05):
exactly okay, And that's how theysort of formed the basis of the zip
code as we know today. Innineteen eighty three, the Postal the Postal
Service, which replaced the post OfficeDepartment, expanded the number of digits in
the zip code to nine. Andthis is what we commonly refer to as
ZIP plus four. Right. Haveyou ever heard that phrase before zip plus

(39:27):
four? I'm not sure I've heardplus four, but I know about the
nine numbers because I see it onmy mail once in a while. I'm
like, oh wow, I've guessed. I guess this is my actual zip
code. It's a little bit longerthan I thought. Well, it's going
to get a little bit more complicated. I'm guessing you do not know what
your plus four is. I doonly because right before we started recording this,

(39:49):
I looked at a piece of mailbecause I thought that question might come
up. I can't even get myown ZIP code rights, and you know
your plus four. It's a wild, wildly different the thing, Jeff.
I think that's how happening right now. Maybe apparently Hunter, These additional digits
identify a side of a street oror or an office building, for example,
so that that's sort of what they'refor. So north side, south

(40:10):
side, east side, west side. Interest very geographical, if you can
believe it. And we don't knowabout this, but there's the there's actually
an eleven digit code that the USPostal Service uses today. I believe it.
Yeah, I'm not going to talkabout that because I have no idea.
I didn't want to dig into it. It's a little beyond sort of
what I was trying to get at. But I thought it was very interesting

(40:32):
that they've moved on beyond ZIP plusfour now that maybe they're at ZIP plus
four plus two or ZIP plus six. I don't know. So that that's
broadly the history of the zip code. And I think right now we're going
to jump into sort of talking aboutthe prominence of the zip code under you
know, sort of the geography ofit, you know, inside the United

(40:53):
States. But before we do that, we have to jump to our last
ad break. Okay, Well,in that case, we'll be right back,
and we're back. We are talkingabout the US Postal Service today.
We just ran through a lot ofthe history of the zip code. Now

(41:15):
we're going to talk about some ofthe other uses of the zip code.
That's for a fault outside of theUS Postal Service, because while it is
created by the US Postal Service fortheir mail routes and delivering mail to various
places, it's actually been adopted bya lot of different organizations for well a

(41:35):
lot of different things. So we'regoing to talk about that. So question
for you hunter, right off thebat, outside of mail, how do
you think the zip code might beused? There's one thing that comes today.
There's one thing that comes to mindimmediately, and that's for marketing.
I'm guessing that absolutely it's used inmarketing because there's demographics attached to it and

(41:58):
that this is a shorthand way ofof target marketing. Probably it's absolutely used
for targeted marketing. I mean,I think at its very base, right,
if we go back to sort ofthe middle part of the nineteen hundreds,
when there wasn't you know, Internetor anything like that, get the
marketing that was done, especially directconsumer marketing, was done through mail.

(42:21):
And we still feel that today.Right, you get junk mail, you
get you know, flyers sent toyou get I don't know, I don't
know about you, hunter, butI typically every other week I get like
a whole little flabby newspaper thing witha bunch of coupons or something, and
I don't really look. I getthat document as well, whatever it is.
But there's that that I would sayis probably one of the more I

(42:44):
don't know, not benevolent uses ofthe zip code, but certainly benign uses
of the zip code. Okay,but there's some I would say that are
are are more more levolent. Andso if I said the word or the
words I should say, insurance premiumsto you, ok, Yeah, how
how do you think that might wrapup into the zip code? Well,

(43:05):
I'm just going to go off ofwhat you you know what you've suggested here,
and that insurance companies are using zipcodes to maybe their idea of the
risk involved in ensuring particular areas,and then there's going one hundred sixed prices
accordingly, one hundred percent. Soif you listener, if you're going in
your shopping for car insurance, forexample, and you go on to I

(43:30):
don't know of car insurance company's website, is inevitably going to ask you what
your zip code is, and you'regoing to have provided a lot of information,
and through a lot of the information, it's going to give you some
number that makes sense to them.I don't know how I think as a
whole science behind it, called actuarialscience, maybe I don't. Okay,
yeah, out of my there's awhole science around this risk that goes into

(43:50):
it. But the zip code isa key one, and that's how insurance
companies are determining whether the geography thatyou live in is less risky or more
risky, and that comes with awhole host of issues in my opinion.
You know, there are other otheraspects here too. So for example,
a lot of federal agencies use thezip code. So the I R S

(44:12):
FBI use it. So the Censusactually uses it. Although the Census uses
zip codes to tabulate some of theirdata, they don't like to do it
right. They actually have their owngeography and some other divisions. Yeah,
but they do use the zip codebecause it's become so popular elsewhere outside of
the post service, so they feltlike they kind of have to divvy up

(44:36):
there their data a little bit there. You know, public utility companies use
it, phone, gas, electricity. There's just there's a lot that goes
into the zip code outside of carryingmail. And I think the issue again
if we go back to sort ofthe beginning of this episod when we were
talking about these these zip codes weren'tdivvied up based on any sort of statistically

(44:57):
meaningful data. Underneath. It wasthe convenience and most efficient pathway of any
given route for the delivery of mail. And so it becomes, I would
argue, problematic to you to usethe zip code for almost anything else.
To me, it's kind of astoundingaside from maybe, like you know,
obviously mailing stuff, marketing stuff toyou that that kind of makes sense to

(45:19):
me, But everything outside of that, it's like, well, I don't
know if this, if this reallyholds up. Yeah, I mean it
makes me think that perhaps, andI don't know this, but that the
zip code was used in redlining perhaps, like that might be right, We
don't know. Actually, well,I think redlining came pretty early in the
nineteen hundreds and the zip code wasn'tuntil well after that. That's a good

(45:42):
point, but that's not to saythey weren't used in conjunction with each other
at some point in similar manners.In fact, not trying to malign the
zip code for being involved in redlining, but it seems to me that
that's possible. Well, what Iwas going to say was that the red
lining was often I mean there wasofficial capacities for it, but it was

(46:04):
often done through insurance, right,right. That was that was sort of
the you know, that was theinsurance company saying like this is not a
good place to invest versus this isa good place to invest. And they
did that often based on racial divides, right, They took some demographics and
banks were involved in this. Andyes, I don't know how the zip
code figures in that, but Ithink looking forward now we have insurance companies

(46:27):
that are basically using the zip codeto do kind of similar things. I
don't necessarily know if we can sayit's it's based on racial divides, but
there's probably some of that going on, I would argue, I mean there
there has to be right. Infact, we're going to talk a little
bit about this starting right now.But it's sort of the cultural attachment of
zip codes, because people have glommedonto zip codes as being good a good

(46:52):
zip code or a bad zip code, and that comes with a lot of
I would say negative well of trendsin society. I guess what I'll say
about that. So Hunter, questionfor you, Yes, what in your
opinion or not not an opinion,what what's the first zip code outside of

(47:15):
your own that you can rattle off? You mean, outside of the one
that I currently live in. Yeah, just a zip code that that is
prominent in your your headspace? Ohsix four five seven? What's on that's
where I grew up? Oh?Interesting, that's that's a really good answer.
In fact, I should have Ishould have made that a caveat that.
You can't have lived anywhere. Thezip code I was looking for was

(47:37):
And you're going to know this raspof the top of the one. I
think this does even come up inprevious episodes, so I wanted to like
bring that up because it's it's ithighlights a very important cultural touchstone for the
zip code. Now, I ampulling a lot of my information in this

(48:00):
next se section from an article outof The New Republic titled the Tyranny of
the zip Code by Anna Clark andAnna Clark sort of went through and highlighted
a bunch of different, you know, cultural aspects of the zip code sort
of how what people are associating themwith, and so, according to that
article, zip codes carry a lotof cash, you know, so to

(48:22):
say, for the exclusivity of richcommunities, and so business journals in Portland,
South Florida, Phoenix, and NorthCarolina are among those that rank the
wealthiest zip codes within their respective areasstates. So this spotlighting residential areas with
the highest average net worth. Doyou know what that zip code might be

(48:43):
here in or what what place thatmight be attached to here in Oregon?
The richest zip code in Oregon?Is that what you're asking? Yeah?
You know, yeah, do youknow where that might be here? It's
in Lake Oswego or Southwest is it? Yeah? Lake oswego yep, So
I mean, but we can seehow that that might be problematic, right
because now you're associating wealth and sortof good with a specific zip code,

(49:07):
which, again, this is notwhat zip codes wherever supposed to be for,
this is not how they were supposedto work. We're attaching these sorts
of ideas to a thing that's noteven really a polygon or a boundary.
It's just a route with houses onthat route or buildings. But it's become
so much more, I mean,as you're describing it. In pop culture,

(49:27):
zip codes serve as instantly recognizable culturalshorthand. So we already talked about
Beverly Hills nine oh two one zero, which is a real zip code,
And of course there's the reality showBrooklyn one one two two three. I'm
not super familiar with that reality show, but it apparently exists, or maybe
it did exist. Melissa and JoeGorga on the Real Housewives of New Jersey
recently declared their intention to quote moveto a better zip code recently. I

(49:52):
guess this is now ten years ago, but this is inside the article.
There's even the fictional zip codes,right, those exist too, right there
they're created to, you know,for fictional places. So there's this example
they pulled up inside the article ofthe TV show Veronica Mars, which I
believe was maybe in like the midtwo thousands. I didn't really watch it,
but they described the rich people withinthe show as nine ers, and

(50:15):
that is from the nine nine ninezip code. It's worth highlighting that there's
no nine nine nine zip codes,such as there's no type of zip code,
but they had they wanted to havethat as sort of a part of
that show, that fiction I showto illustrate that people are using zip codes
as a defining feature of maybe evenyour value to a place. Right you're

(50:39):
you're from the zip code, youare of of wealth. I think I
remember an episode of SNL where oneof the Beverly Hills nine O two one
zero characters was on, like asthe host, and they had this thing
where they were changing the zip codeand everybody got super bent out of shape
and then then they got their zipcode back or something. I think Chris

(51:01):
Farley was the postal employee, saidyou got your zip code back? Well,
it's funny that you mentioned that thatexample, even though that was probably
in Jess because it was on yousaid Saturday Night Live, right, Yeah,
yeah, so probably in jests,but apparently residence of Hyde Park,
Massachusetts. This again, this isback in twenty thirteen won their battle to

(51:23):
have the US Postal Service changed theirzip code, so they had a zip
code. The US post Service wasgoing to change it because they were wary
of high insurance rates and low propertyvalues they faced because they then would share
a zip code with neighboring Mattapan,where poverty and crime were higher. Apparently,

(51:43):
so wow, they were part ofthis community. They were going to
have their zip code. Maybe therewas gonna be a whole new zip code
created. It was gonna be formedout of these two things. Again,
the US post Service isn't doing thiswith any sort of data underneath. They're
just creating it based on their routesand how they're going to deliver mail in
an efficient manner. The residents ofthis Hyde Park town sued and were able

(52:04):
to keep their old zip code.Very fascinating. This option imitating life or
life imitating fiction one of those.I don't know what she came first,
but this is amazing, but notentirely surprising. It's not surprising at all.
I would say Staples, the officeretailer, was among businesses again back
in twenty thirteen exposed for offering betterdeals to customers with affluent zip codes.

(52:27):
So if you lived in an affluentzip code, you were given better deals
based on maybe mailers or maybe maybeyou know, I know retailers often collect
zip codes. Maybe there's something inthere should be the reverse anyways, first
of all, but yeah, that'sthat's nefarious. Yeah. Apparently five Brooklyn
politicians sued because Hurricane Sandy back inthe early twenty teens, Hurricane Sandy,

(52:50):
food SAMs were only allotted to twelvezip codes. Again, this is a
way that the government was sort ofallotting benefits again using the zip code,
which there's no there's no data attachedto. So you can start to see
the theme here, right, thisis very problematically use the zip codes,
yet it's so culturally and organizationally prominentin both public and private sort of sectors.

(53:12):
Yeah, no, absolutely. Itmakes me think of you know the
prefix that we use that you mentionedbefore for the phone, right, the
three numbers, right, the areacode, and how that probably follows suit
in a lot of ways. AndI remember at one point you know,
they had to break up some ofthe area codes that Connecticut had one,
and they decided they needed another one. So it was the richer areas got

(53:32):
that got to keep the old zipthe old area code. So it's kind
of tracks that way as well.Yeah, we could go on and on.
There's probably a lot of examples ofzip code being used in different ways
that is probably not you know,good. I would just argue, you
know, as we leave this sortof section, that zip codes have enormous

(53:53):
cultural attachment. Surely, yeah,you know, people really love the zip
codes. People not everybody's like me, or they can't rattle off their zip
code hand, but I would arguethat people kind of relate to it in
kind of similar ways as they mightdo with their city, their neighborhood,
and as you already suggested hunter,their area code. This is all place

(54:14):
identity stuff, right, which isstuff that we both study and talk a
lot about, and that people oneof the ways in which people make sense
of themselves as belonging to a groupor not belonging to a group, or
connected to a certain place. Andthere's lots of different things involved in that.
But the zip code is not incidentaland it actually matters to some people.
Absolutely, of it's an identity markerin some ways. Absolutely, And

(54:37):
so Hunter, I wanted to andtoday with you know, talking about some
of the international postal services. We'rerunning a little long on time, so
we're going to probably breeze through thispretty quickly. I want to talk a
little bit about it. So,according to the Universal Postal Union, which
is an agency of the United Nations, there are currently one hundred and seventy
two national postal services in the world. Of course there's probably more, and

(55:00):
there are variations of you know,postal services that aren't quite national, but
they exist subregional, and I don'tthink these are actually counted under this thing,
but just know that these are sortof the ones that they're counting.
This is almost not exactly the samenumber of countries that are recognized by the
United Nations. I think the UnitedNation is up to in the neighborhood of

(55:21):
one ninety three or something like that. I believe, I believe you are
correct around around one ninety three,So this would be you know that minus
twenty. So I don't I don'tknow exactly who's missing. I didn't didn't
figure out the data but this organizationproduces a report every few years that ranks
every postal service based on well basedon what they have. Is there four

(55:42):
pillars of postal development and so theythese are categorized by reliability, which reflects
performance in terms of speed and predictabilityof delivery. Their reach, So this
is the global connectivity by evaluating thebreadth and depth of the postal operators international
networks measured by the number of partnernetworks across all key segments of their physical

(56:04):
postal services. Their relevance. Thismeasures the intensity of demand for the full
portfolio of postal services and their resilience. And this is the level of diverse
diversification of revenue streams as well asthe capacity to innovate and deliver inclusive postal
services. So reliability, reach,relevance, and resilience. That's sort of

(56:27):
their you know four pillars there nowtaking that into account, not that you
would necessarily know this off the topof your head, but sure, why
not? Do you want to takea stab at which country has the best
postal service in the world? Well, I got a one in two shot.
I think I'm getting this right.You have like a top ten list,
So I can see if I'm onthe list or anything. How many

(56:47):
how many two do how many choicesdo I get? How many guesses do
I get? You? You canrattle off a few guesses? All right,
I'm gonna Switzerland. It just comesto my mind as a possibility.
Is that on that let that's yourtop guest. I'm going to go with
Switzerland. That's a really good guessbecause that is one hundred, right,
Really, Now the caveat here beingis so I should a lottery today.

(57:13):
I feel like after this episode it'sranked on a one hundred point scale and
Switzerland got one hundred out of onehundred. That's pretty good. Yeah.
Now the Universal Postal Union is basedin Switzerland. Wow, so that's also
not surprising. Yeah, I don't, I don't. I mean, I
don't want to say that there's biasinvolved, but there might be a little

(57:35):
bit of disclosure, right yeah,Okay, so you didn't need all of
your your your guesses, I guesswould you want to take a guess at
where the US Postal Service lands broadlyfrom one to one seventy two? I'm
going to say twenty five. Oh, you do not have a high opinion
of our us R of our USpostals. I just figured that. I

(57:57):
mean, that's still pretty good outof one seventy two. Yeah, that's
still pretty good. The US PostalService is ranked sixth. Oh, it's
pretty solid. Yeah, yeah,so this would be behind Austria. I'm
probably won't be getting my mail fora while after that response. I think
this is behind Austria, Germany,Japan, and France. But above this

(58:17):
is the top ten, above theUnited Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, and
China. China. In fact,this is the first time that they've made
the top ten. Well, theymight have been top ten for at least
a few years, but in thereport I was reading, they had basically
said like how much China's postal servicehad modernized in recent years, and how
much I had jumped it jumped.Right now, it's sitting at seventy nine

(58:40):
point seven points out of one hundred. Apparently just a few years back,
it was like covering around the fifties. So which country does that? Say
it again? This is China?China? Right, Yeah, I could
see that that being pretty high onthe list. Japan and Germany we're going
to be my other guesses. Sothey're on there. Yeah. Yeah,
So that's basically we're not going todive into sort of all the different post

(59:02):
services. They all probably have avery similar story. You know. We
touched on sort of the West Germanpostal code rollout that they did, and
I imagine that there's probably there's Iimagine every country has some version of their
own ZIP code, and there's probthere's probably some some cultural attachments on some
level. I don't know if it'sas big as the United States, but

(59:22):
I would imagine there's probably some.It's it's just so hard to I think
break away, you know, onceyou get once you get any sort of
thing that gets attached to your place, I think it's hard to like break
that away from sort of No,I think that's that's all we're making before.
It's absolutely relevant to the way thatpeople see themselves, I think in
a lot of ways. I rememberI'd lived in Belgium for a year and

(59:45):
this was like before the Internet,or maybe it wasn't before the internet,
before we had access to the internet, and so I was writing a lot
of letters and getting letters from friendsand family, and they didn't have mail
service on Saturdays. So we're downto the five days, and so I
was always hoping Friday would be abig male day so I could open my
letters like pace them out throughout theweekend. Yeah, that's funny, all

(01:00:09):
right. Well with that, Hunter, where can people find you? I'm
Hunter Showbam, a professor of geographyat Portland State University. I am co
author of a couple books with DavidBannis, and those are Portlandists, A
Cultural at List and Upper Left Cities, a Cultural Atlist of San Francisco,
Portland, and Seattle. And ofcourse i'm host of our co host of

(01:00:29):
this podcast, Geography Is Everything.Yeah, thanks Hunter. My name is
Jeff Gibson. You can find mein addition to this podcast Geography is Everything
over on YouTube. You can justgoogle Jeff Geography and I'm sure you're gonna
find it. The If you enjoyedsort of what you listen to, and
you're listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever, please rate and review us.
It really helps us out. Ireally appreciate seeing those reading those as

(01:00:51):
they come in. Sometimes I wishI could reply to them, because some
of you are pretty witty on thosecomments. I'm like, oh, I
see that, but there's just noway for me to respond to you on
them. If you're watching this onYouTube, please like and subscribe. We
really appreciate having you guys there andyou being able to talk with you and
sort of in person, and maybegive a shout out to everybody in your

(01:01:12):
zip code while you're doing that,you know, give a shout out to
your Yeah, yeah, absolutely,yeah, where you coming from? Right?
That should be really fun to see. If you want this delivered straight
to your email box, we dohave a Substack Newsletters Geography is everything dot
substack dot com. It's totally free. You to just go sign up with
your email and you'll get it oncea week and sort of an easy way
to get this. Of course,I think if you're subscribed on Apple podcasts

(01:01:34):
it's the same thing. So whatever, it's just another way you can get
access to this. Now. Nextweek, Hunter, I think we have
a really fun topic. What arewe doing? Oh yeah, this is
my topic? Right? Yeah,so all right, I believe the topic
we're approaching next week is the NileRiver. It is the Nile That's which
big river, big topic, bigriver, big topic. It has enabled

(01:01:59):
the It's enabled ancient civilizations for thousandsof years, right in a place that
well, without it, it wouldbe not I'd be so different. It
just probably would not have had Yeah, No, it's essential to life and
the parts of the world, theparts of Africa that runs through, and

(01:02:19):
so we'll get into that. We'regonna get into that. We're gonna talk
all about the Nile River sort ofwhat it's i'm assuming the history, but
also sort of what's going on withit today. It should be a lot
of fun. I'm really looking forwardto it, going back to one of
our place based episodes, which arealways just fun to sort of talk about
a specific area. That's right it. So come back next week where we
are going to do a whole episodeabout the Nile River and I guess until

(01:02:43):
then, we will see you nexttime. Thank you for listening.