Mapping, Beirut-style: how to navigate a city without using any street names

Beirut is a wonderful city and this is one of the reasons I love it: people intimately know their neighborhoods. Every night coming home from the bars we would pass the same aging Christian militia guy sitting in a lawnchair at 3 AM, watching his street in Gemmayzeh and reporting whatever he saw. It's one of the reasons I felt so safe in Beirut... your neighbors know just about anything that goes on almost immediately.

A Sunni friend told me about a French colleague who had his house robbed in broad daylight in France: the thieves backed a moving truck up to the house, loaded his possessions into the truck, and drove away. His neighbors assumed he was moving and simply hadn't told them. He joked that this would be impossible in Lebanon -- neighbors would descend on the truck asking who the movers were, where the family was moving, asking the movers who their cousins were, inviting them in for tea, etc.

Beirut is an amazing place and I was deeply touched by its beauty and the kindness of the Lebanese people. If any tech startups in Beirut are looking for web app consulting, get in touch -- I want to go back and stay longer!

Reminds me of the success of Waze in Costa Rica.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/10/2...

In Japan many streets don't have names, but every city location has an address. Every block is numbered, and buildings are assigned numbers within the block in the order or construction. My address is Akasaka 9-7-4, which means the 4th building constructed on block 7 of district 9 of Akasaka. Yes it was a pain to resolve addresses before Google maps.

Knowledge of how to get around in Beirut, and much of the Arab world, is based on contextual knowledge and history. People have shared space, and this shared knowledge serves as the basis for spatial communication.

It's a little disappointing to read an article about grassroots mapping efforts that doesn't mention OpenStreetMap even once.

<insert joke about Pittsburghers providing directions based on landmarks, specifically businesses or buildings that are no longer present and haven't been for 15 years>

It drives me crazy in India. People use landmarks; my favorite tea house lists its address as "Across from the HP petrol station, N M Joshi St, Mumbai...". JUST NUMBER YOUR ING BUILDINGS!!!