Tony Grubicek
Appearances
Planet Money
ZIP Codes!
She said, that's weird. There's a house for sale right across the street that's got the wrong address. And I'm like, what do you mean the wrong address? She's like, well, the zip code's not right. I said, no, it could be right. It's just, you know, it's on the other side of the street. That's completely possible. And she's like, no, why would they do that?
Planet Money
ZIP Codes!
Yeah, she's regretting every second of it. And so then, yeah, I started to, you know, I bought some zip code boundaries from a company that sells them. So it just sort of spun out of control from there.
Planet Money
ZIP Codes!
The stakes can be very small. You know, you send your packet of coupons to the wrong neighborhood or to the wrong set of households. That's not a fatal error.
Planet Money
ZIP Codes!
Over thousands of zip codes and hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of streets in the United States, those errors start to add up and it ends up being a jumbled mess eventually.
Planet Money
ZIP Codes!
Huge chunks of those zip codes were were in outlying municipalities. So even though they had a Flint name attached to that zip code for the mailing address, it really wasn't part of the Flint water system.
Planet Money
ZIP Codes!
But again, I would strongly encourage people just to, you know, stick with the mail when it comes to zip codes and leave those be for any kind of real socioeconomic or public health analysis.