In the early hours of 5 a.m. in Manhattan, the air was filled with the unique dampness and chilliness after the snow, with snow melt mixed with ice forming white patches on the ground. Early risers hurried along the streets, tightly wrapped in their coats, while the lights of the stores on the street gradually lit up.
Bob stood by the window with his coffee, quietly observing the awakening of the city, a “good morning” ritual he had repeated for over twenty years. The room was dimly lit, with a card from the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) on the dining table, thanking him for his years of hard work and congratulating him on his honorable retirement from the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Today marks Bob’s last day of work.
At 7 a.m, as Bob entered the post office where he worked, the mail he was responsible for was neatly arranged on the shelves. Every evening before dusk, mails sent from various places are collected by the local USPS, sorted overnight at various distribution centers by region and route, and then transported to corresponding post offices in different areas. Bob’s daily task is to complete the “last mile” delivery.
Bob quickly sorted through the mail, knowing the route like the back of his hand, knowing exactly which house to deliver to first and which one next, without needing to plan. Stepping out of the post office, the street slowly came alive with people nodding greetings at him, while others hurried past. For Bob, accompanying today’s mail to complete its final journey is the best outcome. And tomorrow, when he no longer appears, the entire system will continue to operate as usual, tirelessly.
Before the United States became a nation, the postal system was already established. In 1775, before the Declaration of Independence was issued, a comprehensive postal system had taken shape. The importance of communication was self-evident before the internet emerged, and without stable communication, there could be no discussion of common political life. Therefore, postal services emerged as a necessary public arrangement from the beginning. The U.S. Constitution also lists it as one of the national functions that Congress must ensure.
However, with the rapid expansion of mail volume and urban size, the U.S. Postal Service was gradually caught in a double bind of “budget constraints” and “practical needs.” The nationwide postal strike of 1970 led Congress to pass the Postal Reorganization Act that year, abolishing the U.S. Postal Department and officially establishing USPS the following year.
The purpose of this restructuring was to enable the postal system to operate more in line with market forces, ensuring the survival and normal operation of USPS; at the same time, it must take on the “Universal Service Obligation.” According to the law, USPS must provide consistent and accessible postal services to the public without unreasonable discrimination based on geographical location, population density, or cost considerations. If communication is only for a few, then public space itself cannot exist.
For USPS, every address must be treated equally; every route cannot be abandoned for commercial reasons. This principle is also intuitively reflected in postage:
In the United States, the basic postage for regular mail is uniform nationwide. The same stamp can be used to mail to a neighboring street or a remote town thousands of miles away, regardless of distance or delivery difficulty. This reflects the principle of equality rooted in the institutional design.
However, this also means higher “costs.” Because if assessed purely on commercial logic, the massive sending business in remote areas is minimal and delivery difficulty is high, there is simply no need to maintain it. But due to legal requirements, USPS cannot base decisions on commercial considerations. This has led USPS to endure financial pressure for a long time and it is not appropriate to compare it with other commercial courier companies.
For over two centuries, the institutional forms have been continuously adjusted, communication technology has been updated, but the core principle of USPS serving the whole public has remained unchanged. Whenever someone drops a letter on the street corner, for USPS, it is a commitment that cannot be refused or screened. Few people realize the weight of the system behind this.
In addition to the high costs generated by the institutional design of “equality for all,” the continued growth of massive business also challenges USPS’s capabilities to the limit. Official data shows: in 2024, USPS handled an astonishing average of 3.71 billion mails every day, including approximately 150 million letters, a large number of business mails, journals, and tens of millions of packages. During peak periods such as holidays, this number will even be higher. So, how does USPS handle these billions of mails?
To the average person, sending mail involves two steps: dropping the mail into the mailbox and then waiting for it to arrive. But few people know that once a letter enters the mailbox, it enters a national postal network that spans cities and state borders, no longer under the influence of local administrative systems. The letters go through many twists and turns in this network before reaching their final destination.
As night falls, a large-scale migration begins. Branches of USPS nationwide act in unison, collecting mails of the day from street mailboxes, post office counters, and indoor drop boxes in buildings, then sending batches of mail to regional distribution centers for centralized processing.
These distribution centers are the hubs of the USPS national transportation network. Inside the spacious workshops brightly lit all night, long conveyor belts emit a low and regular hum, mails flowing in continuous streams, swiftly passing through scanning areas; the indicator lights of intelligent equipment flash non-stop, addresses of every mail are precisely identified and automatically diverted to different exits. Distribution center staff constantly check for paper jams or mail misalignment and manually identify mails that machines cannot read. There is no noise, no chaos, only clear division of labor and highly standardized process design. The billions of mails are quietly sorted in this manner.
These distribution centers are usually not located in the city, but dispersed near various transport hubs. Once sorting is complete, the mails can immediately be transported by road or air to destinations throughout the country. A large volume of mails can arrive at the next post office the following morning, awaiting the final delivery. This massive system operates around the clock, maintaining the nation’s daily communication capabilities. And the most intuitive experience for individuals is the convenience of “mail arriving the next day.”
As dawn breaks, a new batch of mails has been neatly arranged on shelves in various post offices, awaiting the arrival of thousands and thousands of mail carriers like Bob.
When a mail is received by a mail carrier, it can be said that it has emerged from the vast operating system of USPS. At this moment, the address on the envelope is clear, the delivery route is reasonable, and as long as the mail is placed in the corresponding mailbox, the mission is considered accomplished.
But for the outside world beyond the system, this is just the beginning: apartment entrances need to be identified, access control keys often malfunction, mailbox labels in old buildings are unclear, new residents have not changed their nameplates yet, some people are rarely home, some are only at home at specific times, some mails require repeated confirmation, some can only be temporarily taken back; addresses may exist in the system but cannot be found in reality.
Moreover, snow-covered streets, high temperatures in summer; city construction, temporary road closures, or even a parked car can all change delivery routes and sequences. These are the “last miles” that the system cannot solve.
In these moments, there are no predefined answers to refer to. Starting from Bob, the journey ahead will become more concrete: by the front door, next to the mailbox, or that small segment of sidewalk that is constantly measured. Every street, every building, every household carries its unique footprint. The mails have reached the final segment of their journey, and every step thereafter will be different.