Repository of US Addresses ?

[HyltonHaynes]

Is there a repository of addresses in the entire United States available for download, I have been looking for this from couple of week but have no luck in getting any links. Any leads/help is appreciated. 

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Hylton,

   No such repository exists to my knowledge. The logistic, updating, and cost of such a repository would be insane.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

to add to Robert's comments... the sheer invasion of privacy by acknowledging that a real address actually exists...and misuse by marketer... aka  ... Occupant, 123 Maple Drive, Your City ... would be pretty awful

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

Dan,

Sounds like Canada might be more constrained than the U.S in the use of addresses by marketers.  Here in the States businesses and organizations have fairly free reign to create address lists from whatever sources they can lay their hands on and then send people mail.  You should see all the unsolicited stuff in my mailbox!  Marketers love address databases.  Even the US Post Office will sell address lists for various geographies.  And, like in email, it can be difficult for a person to "opt out" of all the advertising ("paper spam") one gets.

Chris Donohue, GISP

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Thankfully we are... persistent unsolicited junk mail from a company is generally the kiss of death for their foolish business plan

[GrantHerbert]

I can't see how acknowledging the existence of an address would constitute an invasion of privacy. Allowed uses of addresses is a different matter. 

[DanPatterson_Retired]

As Canadians... it is a widely held viewpoint... not ubiquitous. No one excep the 'tax' and '911' people need to know where I live.  It isn't something we banter around... like when they ask for your postal code (zip code) at the major chain stores... I give one for the major cemetery just to mess with them.  If forced to give a street address, similar deal... works wonders with relatives as well.

And on that note, with the help of GeoNet and their former mapping program... I have even gone to great lengths to mask my place of employment

https://community.esri.com/message/533072 

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

As Robert Scheitlin, GISP mentioned, there is unlikely to be a full database available.  This is due in part to many municipalities being involved in the addressing process, so thousands and thousands of entities. 

For example, I am part of the team that creates new addresses for the City of Roseville, California.  The County we are in does the addressing for locations in the County outside Roseville.  So for the United States you can see how complex it can get as one considers each City and County has a hand in the process. (And each has its own addressing standards, which vary considerably, but that is another can of worms).

Plus it is dynamic.  New addresses are being added and existing ones updated/corrected on a regular basis.

What would you be using the addresses for?  Are you trying to find existing locations, like by Geocoding?  Depending on what your goal is, there may be a way to do it without having to create a database of all the addresses.

Addressing 

Chris Donohue, GISP

[HyltonHaynes]

Sure I understand the complexity. I was trying to preprocess millions of addresses, they have a lot of inconsistencies (missing, misspell etc.) because of free form text entry from users. This would then be used for geocoding using ESRI or other tools.

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

There are several possibilities to help resolve those.  First, can you define what the things are that need to be "standardized"?  If so, there are ways to use code to help "clean up" the address entities into more standard formats.  There are several folks on here who have in the past provided Python script that has greatly aided in address data cleanup.  For example, to clean up street suffixes, Darren Wiens  provided some nice Python advice on how to do this.

Python - using Replace in Field Calculator 

Also, there are several folks on GeoNet who regularly have to clean up address data, so may have some ideas to share.    jborgion 

Chris Donohue, GISP