Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just curious if you can find a set of street names in your city that follow a pattern. For example in Boston, we have in the Midtown area near the Prudential an alphabetic sorting of streets that cut perpendicular to Boylston St.
A) Arlington St.
B) Berkeley St.
C) Clarendon St
D) Dartmouth St
E) Exeter St
F) Fairfield St
G) Gloucester St
H) Hereford St
I) Ipswitch St
J) Jersey St
K) Kilmamock St
There is also the thoroughfare lining Boston landmarks from Jamaica Plain to Fenway Park.
Arnold Arboretum (Arbor way)
Jamaica Pond (Jamaica way)
Muddy River (River way)
The Fens (Fen way)
In my hometown of Seattle, there is a nice "quadrant" system throughout the city, NW, NE, SW, SE. The Avenues run north-south, and the Streets run east-west, I guess modeled after NYC and other large cities.
Salt Lake City is also quite interesting in that all the street addresses are in relation to the LDS temple. And this is copied in other cities that have large LDS populations. A typical SLC address might be 600 S. 200 E. Simply means 6 blocks south and 2 blocks east of the temple.
The system in Plymouth and surrounding areas is that there is no system. Roads twist, wind, change directions, and make hair pin turns with little notice. Roads also change names every few miles, and can even be named three things at once (County Road 9, Rockford Rd, and 42nd St, which are all the same street at the same point). There are also several streets that have identical names or very similar ones. There are several "Larch Lanes" and "Revere Streets" in Plymouth. Also, the numbered streets are even more confusing. For example, 41st Ave N can be a quiet residential street in Plymouth (my home street) or a busy thoroughfare through Robbinsdale. Also, 41st Ave N is not to be confused with 41st Ave S or 41st St N or N 41st Ave. It is all very confusing.
In Phoenix all east-west streets in the immediate downtown are named after American presidents.
Also, Central Avenue divides Phoenix's east and west sides. All north-south roads west of Central are Avenues and Drives (ex. 67th Avenue or 67th Drive), all north-south roads east of Central are Streets and Places (ex. 67th Street or 67th Place). It's pretty straightforward. However, I guess it can be frustrating if someone tells you to go to 67th Avenue and you go to 67th Street, as they are 134 blocks from each other...
Tucson is the only city in the country to have a type of road called a Stravenue. A stravenue basically runs diagonally between a street and an avenue, intersecting both.
Denver has two grids: a small grid of diagonal streets in the downtown area, laid out parallel to Cherry Creek. The main grid is laid out in the directions of the compass, with the 0/0 point Broadway (N/S) and Ellsworth (E/W). Everything north of Ellsworth is "north", everything west of Broadway is "west", etc. Streets run N/S, Avenues run E/W. Some of the streets have names in alphbetical order, from east to west on the west side, and west to east on the east side. The near west side streets are all named for Native American tribes, e.g. Acoma, Bannock, Cherokee, Delaware, etc. The avenues north of Ellsworth are numbered, consecutively, from 1st to 168th. The avenues south of Ellsworth are named, and are not in alphabetical order. There are a few exceptions. This system is used in most of the suburbs as well. The Denver city limit on the north side is 52nd Avenue (in general).
Location: Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
8,900 posts, read 15,947,320 times
Reputation: 1819
Most people know how it works in NYC, so I'll say my specific neighborhood. Most towns on the island by me have grid systems, but my town is the exception. We have windy roads and no dead ends. There's sections in each town--like the section of roads named after birds (the bird section), the flower section, plus a few more.
Here's a map from the Census. This is what I mean:
Dallas, for the most part, doesn't feel like it has any system at all. Even in downtown where there is a grid, there are actually two different grids in slightly different angles. Outside the downtown and its freeway ring, the highways spread out in the typical hub-and-spoke fashion. There is a pattern of larger streets going east west and north south and forming mega blocks which are then sub-divided into residential/feeder streets within them.
This is also pretty much the pattern in Houston as well, except Houston's downtown feels better laid out with one clean grid of east-west and north-south streets.
In Philadelphia, the numbered streets go North-South with numbers increasing from east to west. Major East-West streets, at least in downtown area, are named for trees (Cherry, Poplar, Pine, Walnut, Chestnut, Spruce, etc.), except for Market Street (which was the "main street" of Philly for a long time), and South Street, which as the name suggests, is usually the southern boundary of the original town and what is now Center City/downtown.
With this kind of grid, you can almost never get lost. 1600 Walnut St means you're on the corner of 16th Street and Walnut St. Major landmarks are thus easy to locate. 69th Street Transit Center is obviously out in West Philly area on 69th Street and Market Street (since it's the terminus of the Market Street Elevated train line). 30th Street Station is obviously on 30th Street.
It is curious that in a conservative town like Salt Lake City, addresses are given in relation to the location of the the Mormon Temple...which is presumably in the center of town. In Philadelphia, the "Center Square", original to Penn's planned city of brotherly love, is the site of the huge and glorious City Hall, but addresses aren't given in relation to the City Hall.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
