4 Ways British and American Streets Are Very Different
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- Опубліковано 9 чер 2024
- In which I break down the main differences between British and American streets.
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Another interesting thing you'll find about city streets Is that cities usually have a Euclid St/ave This is put in because city planners often want to play respect to the father of geometry.
That’s interesting. Tucson has a(n) Euclid Street and I never gave it a thought
@@luirelow so does Tampa 😊
Euclid is also a tree. If the city had a tree theme for street name, it may not be the case.
@@mbrennan459 I believe the tree you're talking about is actually a proper name. It is a specific tree named after Euclid. So it wouldn't be a species of tree like apple or hemlock, but more like general Sherman
In downtown Brisbane Australia you can find your way around by knowing that all the queen/ princess names run perpendicular to the king names. So William, George, Albert and Edward streets are all parallel to each other. Then running at right angles to them you have Ann, Adelaide, Queen, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret and Alice. It was a huge help knowing this when I moved there for uni.
I've learned about the Japanese address system and it's quite different. During WWII all the street names were removed to confuse the enemy so now instead they use blocks. Inside a city you'll have different wards that each have a number, then your block has a number, then your building, so if you know what city someone is in you can find them simply by a number like 22-6-13. The crazy thing is that the buildings are numbered according to age, the oldest building being 1. So if one building is torn down all the addresses on the block change.
Major roads will still have names attached to them or very famous roads will too (ex. Takeshita Doori). But, overall, yeah. That's why it isn't uncommon for people to give directions based on landmarks or even to draw up quick maps to help you find a place.
And there are duplicate addresses, so the post office often refuses to deliver if there isn't a full name written on the post box. I used to live in a Tokyo neighborhood where my home had the exact same address as two other homes.
You missed out an important feature of US house numbers: the hundreds digit tells you how many blocks you are away from the perpendicular street that passes through the center of town, as the crow flies. I say as the crow flies, because when a street doesn't go through to downtown, it still gets the same number range on any given block as the other streets parallel to it get. So for example if North Jefferson Street starts four blocks north of the main drag, its first block will be the 500s block, and every house on that block will have a house number of at least 500 and less than 600. This also means that there can be a 301 North Jefferson street, and also a 301 South Jefferson street, and they'll be just slightly more than 4 blocks away from each other.
I did not know that….🇬🇧
This explaination made my brain ache! 😆
@@wendi2819 Mine too, and I'm from here!
In the city where I live, the first digits represent the number of blocks from the ‘starting point’, a river. The last 2 digits represent the house number within an individual block. Thus, the address of 12230 E. Everett St. is 122 blocks east of the river and the house number is 30, which, because it is an even number, is on the south side of the street. 6633 W. Everett St. is 66 blocks west of the river and the house number is 33, on the north side of the street. Easy.
Yup.
Yes, most places in the US use the block-based number. So if a block has five houses on one side, they may be numbered 400, 402, 404 (probably an empty lot), 406, and 408. Then you would cross a street, and the next one is 500.
Definitely applies to Eugene, lol, First St or 1st St is approximately at the Willamette River downtown. I think what Laurence was referring to as adding 1000 per mile, is the rural numbering system, that translated to street #'s as the city sprawls out thru its farmland. jes' a thot.
This sounds like Omaha.
I lived in a town where streets where east-west and ave was north south. Each side had N 3rd st, or E 3rd Ave. (I forget which was which.)
Any ways I delivered pizza and when you looked at the ticket, you had to make sure the direction and street type was correct!
On a trip I took to England decades ago with my Mom (who was from there), we saw an old house with the number 525 on it. I made some comment about the house number and my Mom said: “That isn’t the number, that is the year it was built.”
Added later: Ok, ok, so I miss typed the number. Got it. 1525.
In the colonial sector of the town I live in on the East Coast, there are houses that have the same. But none from 525 lol
I am chortling at this. :)
I like the idea but at least in the U.S. it would get very complicated. There are old suburbs (Victorian) , Mid Century suburbs, late 20th century, to brand new. They also tend to be economically separated with each suburb having more or less a homogenous population economically. I don't know how it is in Britain.
Your mum was bullshitting you. No houses survive from 525.
I doubt the house came from 525, 1525 maybe
Hi Laurence, I am Australian, but I noticed in the US that often, house numbers started at 100, rather than 1, and that at the next block, the numbers started at 200, then 300 and so on. This was quite helpful because it meant you had a pretty good idea of how far away the target address was. My wife comes from Mildura, in NW Victoria, Australia, which was founded by American brothers (the Chafffeys). Interestingly, unlike most Australian towns and cities, the streets are numbered and a lot of the avenues, at right angles to the streets, are named after trees. Another feature of US streets that I think is a good idea is that on the traffic light booms that arch across the intersection, they often have a large sign with the name of the street. This is much easier to read than the smaller street signs in the UK and Australia.
How my U.S town does it is we have a "Federal Ave" which is basically the vertical main street through it and also separates streets ending in east and west This street is the basis of all numbers by block going horizontal off this vertical street, so the block right of it starts at single digits one side of the street being evens and the other side being odd. There is no real reason to how it goes up because you could be looking at the same side it could from 23 and the house next door being 31 lol. But as soon as another vertical steet goes through it a new block starts. So the first block right off federal is addresses less then 100, then the next block starts is 1 block away from federal starting houses with possible numbers 100-199, then after the next block after that which would be "2 blocks from federal" starts 200-299 possible numbered houses. Then we have "state street" which is like a horizontal main street with the same concept but with the houses on the vertical streets of this street which also separates North and south. So if you live east of federal ave and south of state street street you'll live on a *number" street SE or S *state name* Ave, and if you lived west of fedral Ave and north of state street you'd love on a *number* Street NW or *president name* ave
A small correction for you, though it's probably already been pointed out. House numbers in the US generally don't have anything to do with distance from the center specifically. Rather, the last two digits of your house number (tens and ones place) show your position on your block. The digits preceding that indicate which block of the grid you are on. Functionally, it ends up working much the same way in that the street number will give you a rough idea of the distance/location. But depending on the size of the grid in an area, the numbers can grow much faster or slower than one thousand per mile.
This comment amused me because as a kid I remember my American cousins from Chicago living in a house numbered 3210. I had a vision of this endless road of thousands of houses until I finally went to visit and found out it was the 10th house an the 32nd block 😀
The official standard where I live is based off of physical distance from a specific point. Which block of the grid you're on probably applies to city streets, but doesn't work so well when you have to start numbering houses on rural roads.
I can hear to say this as well. What's funny is how much easier it makes navigating a town or city. When you know you're on the 3,500 block and the address you need to get to is on the 2100 block, you know that it's 14 blocks to your destination. So you don't need to watch house numbers the entire time, just count Cross Streets until you get close enough to actually start paying attention.
The addresses around here are based on cross streets. 810 means the cross street is 8th and house number is 10. Get into the city and 2326 8th Street would mean the cross street is 23rd, so after crossing 23rd, you'd start looking for building number 26 on 8th Street.
@@DarkandStormyNight01 Yes, that's the numbering scheme I described, just paired with also numbering the streets instead of naming them. Although in most cases buildings are numbered in order along a block, but they will skip numbers between buildings. This leaves wiggle room in the future if additional buildings are built.
For cities in America, I think it depends on how old the city is. I live near Boston, and the "joke" that is often told, is that the streets are simply paved over cow paths. It is true that our large park in the Back Bay area was formerly a cow pasture. The streets that surround the Boston Common, as this park is named, are quite confusing.
It’s a park now, but when Boston was founded that was common land, that anyone in the community could graze cattle on or plant crops on. Hence, Boston Common.
In Texas, we are convinced they still let cows determine the course of our streets.
Yes, there are a handful of special exceptions. New Orleans immediately springs to mind as a major stand-out example (all the oldest lots are long narrow wedges oriented perpendicular to the river; I don't think they even built roads in that city for first hundred or so years of its existence), but Boston is another. Mackinac Island is another.
There are also a number of cities wherein one or both of the axes deviate a bit from truth north-south or true east-west, usually for geographical reasons, or occasionally to stay parallel/perpendicular to some locally important highway that's taking a diagonal path to get from one bit city to another. The most famous example of this is Manhattan. Relatedly, some cities have substantial areas where most of the streets don't go through so you just have to go around the long way, either because of water or topography; Niagara Falls is one example of this phenomenon; Washington PA is another.
I’m a young mexican trying to make it out the hood. I review weed products on my UA-cam channel. When i look at the Top, ain’t NO Mexicans!
At least that's more polite that one of tales told about the origin of Confusion Corner in Stuart, FL. A whopping eight streets converge in one heck of mess.
Would love to see a video on the difference between American and British suburbs. Like, how do the suburbs around Chicago compare to the ones around London? This could be a good excuse to visit some of the towns on the North Shore or the cities along the Fox River.
I don’t know about Chicago, but there are no real suburbs around London. It is widely accepted to be the anus of the UK. There are so many more interesting and beautiful cities here. London is largely irrelevant to most of us UK residents.
@@jonathanfinan722 Chicago is largely irrelevant to most US residents.
@@O2life well yeah. That should go without saying.
@@O2life and known as being gang ridden and the murder capital of the US. I’m not saying that’s true, but that’s what is most known about it from an outsider’s perspective.
@Nicky L as a Canadian, I don't think London is irrelevant. It is the country's seat of government, and is the centre of the British economy. It's like saying Washington - the US's capital, is irrelevant to the US. Some people may believe that 'all politics is local' , but it doesn't apply to everything as the Jan. 6 protests proved.
The story I've heard for tree-named streets is that back in the day, they'd plant that specific type of tree along the street because many people couldn't read, but they'd be able to recognize the different trees.
Oh, totally not true.
I live on a street named Park, in a town where the streets on one side of a lake are mostly named after trees and streets on the other side are mostly named after flowers...to the point where people talk about the "tree side" and the "flower side." Except they don't explain that they are referring to the street names and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out.
I don't know about other parts of the country, but in the South the alternative to "Main Street" is often Broad Street. And of course every city of any size has a street named after Martin Luther King, Jr.
John F Kennedy is also a common street name.
And if there is any crime going on in the city, rest assured that it'll happen on MLK Street.
Found the racist.
@@SaraAmis Actually that's a quote from a comedy skit. I forgot who's skit it was but I think it was someone like Dave Chappelle or someone like that.
@@jasonweible2834 it was Chris Rock.
It might not be true everywhere in the US, but in one town I lived in, they used an alphabetical list of types of tree instead of numbered streets. What would have been First street, was Apple, then Birch, Cedar and so on. This system was adopted because the town founders thought numbered streets were common and lame, true legend.
Like Alphabet city in NYC
Same in the town I lived in in California for many years. There was the Main Street, Broadway, and then alphabetical starting with Cedar. The did no such thing with the cross streets. They remained 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. so… half lame? 😏
Some cities use the Alphabet and numbers for street names. Some cities and towns use tree names by the first letter of the tree: ash, birch, cedar, dogwood, elm, fir, etc., etc...
@@ronclark9724 In DC, we use letters, numbers, and multiple alphabets, including trees, historical figures, and states.
Same in my town. We have Royal Palm, Sable Palm, Travelers Palm, etc. Can you tell I live in Florida?
Old trade routes are still represented in cities like Chicago. Many of the diagonal streets there are old Indian foot paths.
Trying to think of them all...Clybourn, Elston, Milwaukee, Southwest Highway, Archer, Ogden, Vincennes
Same for Cotton Ave I Macon, GA! See earlier post.
@@bossfan49 , don’t forget Clark! (Ok, it isn’t 100% diagonal - basically just from North to Foster … and I don’t know if it was an old foot path for anybody, but it is the first that came to mind!)
🤓
Indian treaty lines.
Here in Charlotte, NC we've got "Trade Street" which interests with Tryon Street (our version of Main street). That intersection is marked by 4 heritage statues on each street corner that pay tribute to the ancestors, native, Americans, Frontiers men and women (settlers) that built this city and it's financial district.
About 20 years or so ago, a LARGE plot of land that had been owned by my grandfather farm, was being prepared to be sold for homes. Before sale, my uncle subdivided the land into lots and streets for approval by the city. Because of this, he was able to dictate the naming of the streets. The main street of the subdivision was my grandparent's last name. There were two culs-de-sac off that street; one named after my grandmother's first name and one after my grandfather's first name. Another street was my mother's childhood family name (a variation of her middle name). Another was my uncle's nickname on his high school baseball team, as well as another street named after his high school baseball coach. Finally, my aunt's maiden name. I am guessing that the people that live on these streets have no idea WHY the streets are named the way they are but my family does.
I have absolutely no idea why any of the past three streets I've lived on were named as they were. I've heard of a town by the same name as my current street and the previous two streets could have been someone's last name, but I have no idea if any influential people in the region had that name.
I love your grandfather's story! My last apartment was in an old mansion that had been subdivided. I had lived there for 10 years and did not know that the whole street was named after the building I was living in. It was in the real estate ad when it was put up for sale
Love your story & your grandfather’s naming system. Reminds me that when I was very little, many decades ago (sob), our road was named Amy Brook, which was the developer’s daughter’s name. They lived across the street and she was a playmate. Now the street is still there but I’m sure no one knows how it got it’s name. They probably think a brook was once there.
pretty cool! can’t blame grandpa for wanting to do that it leaves a legacy :)
It’s wonderful that a trace of your family remains in the area.
The sub-division I live in has street names that are mostly given names. I just assumed that someone named them after their kids or grandkids or something like that.
My home town had a "Main Street" at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, but it was never a major commercial street.
It was called Main Street because it was the route of the city's first water main; the large pipe carrying domestic fresh water for the municipal water system.
At the time, it was one of the posh residential streets, with genuine mansions in Second Empire, Queen Ann, Greek Revival and Craftsman styles.
Nice video Lawrence, I've lived in several houses with a 3 and 4 digit numbering systems. My home here in Illinois has 3 digits. Normally in larger cities they can go from 3 to 6 digits.
In Seattle, the address numbers start with the street they're adjacent to. So if you're on 8th St, but closer to 15th Avenue than 16th, the address will be like 1501.
What's also strange is that streets here in America will suddenly just change their names half way down. There is an intersection near me where you drive on Central Ave and come to a red light. If you turn left you will be on Chicago Ave, if you turn right you will be on Arlington Ave, and if you continue straight, you are on Alesandro Ave! It's insane!!
On Lake Cook Road just west of the Tristate, you’ll see an intersecting street that is called Sanders Road south of Lake Cook but Saunders Road north of Lake Cook. Two different counties on either side of the road, which might explain the difference.
That's usually because they started as 2 different streets that were eventually connected. Or, there were 2 different jurisdictions (cities, counties) that were resounding for naming and that's where they meet.
Because one town named their part of the street Crawford and another Pulaski. It used to all be Crawford and my gram kept on using the name. LOL Often some politician wants to name a street for someone and the name changes.. Then they went to leaving the name but putting up a symbolic sign for the person cause too much confusion.
We have lots of situations like that in the Pittsburgh area, mostly because the street goes through multiple cities/boroughs. For instance, one street is California Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, California Avenue, Church Avenue, and Center Avenue. Another is W. 7th Avenue, W. 8th Avenue, E. 8th Avenue, River Road, Kennywood Boulevard, Duquesne Boulevard, S. Duquesne Boulevard, Duquesne Road, Dravosburg Road, etc.
By the name of those streets and how you described it, I'm thinking you are talking about Riverside, Ca.
Wow, as an American I learned a lot about how we name and number our streets. Thanks.
Yea, lot's of things American we aren't interested in the origin story. LOL.
I grew up in a house out in the country, perhaps 3 miles from the center of our small California town. Until the early 1970s, every address outside the (one square mile) city limits of that town was a "rural route" address; ours was Route 2, Box 623. However, a conversion to more conventional house numbers on residential streets was being planned. Our little street (a cul de sac with 11 houses and 2 vacant lots that later acquired houses) was given its new addresses early because a car took the turn onto the street a bit too tightly and smashed the entire row of mailboxes that had long been clustered at the intersection.
So we were immediately assigned our new house numbers and directed to relocate our new mailboxes to our driveway entrances. Our new house number was 26425.
My mother grew up in a fairly large city and their house number was 1433 East _____ Street. I just looked it up on Google Maps and that address is actually exactly 14 blocks from the city center, but interestingly that street doesn't go all the way through, and there is no West _____ Street. Anyway... when she saw the 26425, she laughed her head off and said, we're on the 26th block from WHERE?? And there are HOW MANY hundred houses on our street?? Ours was (at the time) perhaps, depending on how you define a street, only one of perhaps 5 streets along 2 miles of what was then a very sleepy country road. We never did figure out where the notion of the 26 thousands came from, and quite interestingly, a similar residential street perhaps 300 feet west of ours was eventually assigned THE EXACT SAME HOUSE NUMBERS as our street (and we got a lot of misdirected mail meant for the other street). So as far as we could ever figure out, the numbering "system" was random and arbitrary.
Finally... each house on our street sat on at least one acre of land. Our next door neighbor's assigned house number was 26435, the next 26445, and so on. Somewhere in the cul de sac the numbers changed such that the eventual house opposite ours became 26420, its neighbor was 26430 and so on. Around the same time I remember hearing that the zoning density for our neighborhood allowed for 10 units per acre, and the numbering system seemed to allow for the possibility that more housing units would eventually be squeezed onto those lots. 50 years later this has not happened.
Ah, the joys of bureaucratic thinking.
Urban Distance: Even when you’re in a “city” in England, the term “just over the road” is confusing to an American. My mind always translated it to “just across the street.”
More often than not it was a walkable distance under a mile, but it was seldom a “just across the street” American approximation.
I was in Liverpool for a few years. When anyone told me such-and-such a place was “just over the road” I would follow with “How long do you think it would take me to walk there?”
In U.S. we say "down the road."
Also many American cities name east-west oriented roads as "streets" and north-south oriented roads as "avenues" (or vice versa). Combined with the "zero-point" block numbering, you can get a very quick bearing when navigating or estimating distances.
E.g. A building number in the 1300s on 25th Avenue probably means you can go to 13th Street and then just keep going until you get to 25th Ave, where you'll be within 1 block of your destination.
That system is generally used west of the Mississippi, and is a by product of how Congress determined how the land was measured and divided from the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific. East of the Mississippi a different system was adopted and used based on precedent established in the Northwest Ordinance under the Article of Confederation.
I live in an area where there is a 124th Street and 124th Avenue, that intersect.
@@luddite4change449 Indeed, go out in the countryside anywhere in the Midwest US, and you'll see the effects of the Northwest Ordinance today. Millions of miles of roads and township markers, all on one mile squares. One reason why kilometers will never completely take over in the US.
@@rhekman He lives in one of those NW Ordinance areas, so is probably biased to that system and doesn't realize it.
In Phoenix both our Streets and Avenues run north-south. However, they are divided by Central. Streets are East of Central and Avenues are West of Central. So if you are on 7th Street that is East side of town and 7th Ave is West side.
I'd argue that the primary difference in street names comes from when in the process the street is named. In Britain, they were often named AFTER the route was already in place and had major features already in place after which to name the street. In America, we quite often have our streets laid out on the grid before any buildings are in place, or even planned, so we can't exactly name them after what's going to be a major feature of the street if we don't know. In the few cases where we DID, you'll find we have named the streets similarly to the British - see Salt Lake City's Temple Street, New York's Wall Street, Chicago's Lake Shore Drive, etc.
Salt Lake City has North Temple, South Temple, and West Temple - you guessed it! - on each side of Temple Square. There is no 'East' Temple though, that would be Main Street. :-)
San Francisco's Battery Street was once where the cannon defences were; Front Street was just what its name says. Landfill has placed both farther from shore than they once were
NewOrleans “Main Street” is called “canal street” bc it was a canal that was used for import&export in commerce. Then as the city grew it was paved over& became a very wide street with 2 sets of tracks for streetcars running back& forth simultaneously in the middle lanes& the outer lanes served the directions of buggies&later cars which are 3 lanes wide in each of the outer segments.
New York City has a Canal Street also, though I don't know its history. There are also Church Street, Trinity Place, and Rector Street, which are downtown, near Trinity Church Wall Street. I've seen lots of towns with Church Streets. Newark NJ has a Rector Street running past Trinity & St. Philip's Cathedral. (Those are Episcopal Church examples because I'm Episcopalian.)
I think a lot has to do with the age of the road. There was a "Farm to Market Road" where I used to live. Obviously that had been around for some time and was named for the primary function of the road.
One other observations that I know of is in neighborhoods, streets can be named thematically based on the name of the neighborhood. I once lived in a neighborhood (sometimes called a development) where all the streets were named for horse breeds or some sort of equestrian term. (Coach Wood, Dapple Gray, Appaloosa).
That can happen in the UK as well. For example, near me there is a housing development that was built on an old RAF airbase, and all the street names are plane related things like "Spitfire Way", or "Nimrod Close".
I grew up in Hammond Indiana. We had Presidential streets and tree streets. But the worst were the numbered streets. 170th street was one block from 170th place. Then came 171st street and 171st place. A mail carrier's nightmare.
The south side of Chicago has the same thing with street and place alternating.
There's a place in a nearby town here where there are two S Cherry streets. The developers built on lots, then built a road past that portion and decided to continue it as S Cherry St, despite there being houses in the middle. It makes zero sense.
you think that's bad, in my town, there is deer drive, deer lane, and deer lane drive, along with a couple other roads named after deer.
Similar to Kansas City metro area...but with Street and Terrace, increasing in number as you go south... 85th Street, 85th Terrace, 86th St., 86th Terr., etc.
And that unnecessarily confusing system was the reason that young man recently was shot by a racist because he went to the wrong street.
No insult intended, but have you been to Atlanta, GA? Nearly all roads have the word peach in them.
YES, when I visited Atlanta I swear every street was NAMED Peach something. I never knew where I was. Most confusing city I have ever visited.
Don't forget that in some old villages the houses don't even have numbers, just names. The Old Rectory, Orchard House, The Dell, Rose Cottage etc etc.
*As a Brit living in America , yes its true about streets being named after trees. I live on a road called Cypress Court which is off Forrest Point Avenue which is in a subdivision called Oakwood...lol!*
I would gladly tell you if I've ever lived on a street with one of these names, but it comes up as a security check when I log in to some accounts: "At which of these addresses have you lived?" Then it gives a selection of 4 addresses on different streets. Nice phishing attempt, Laurence 🤣
Modern sites can just send a text to your phone for that.
I love the wide open spacious streets in many US neighbourhoods but deplore those awful 'yards' when compared with a pretty UK garden.
I live in a small town. Our addresses go by yards. So, if your address number is 70, your house is 70 yards from the start of the street. So, you won’t find and addresses that are one number after the other. All of them jump a few numbers (the yards between properties)
In a lot of US locales without a "city center", the street number starts at 100 and going up by 100 for each block (or tenths of a mile if there's not a block system). For example, my house number, 487, indicates my house is nearly a half mile from the start of the street I live on - but my old apartment at 420 Sycamore was only four and a bit blocks (probably a quarter mile or possibly a little less) from College Avenue, where Sycamore started.
This is how things are in my city, and also in the suburbs.
In the West most towns were laid out after the section township range survey system was imposed on the landscape. In dividing land 330’ come in at a sixteenth of a mile. So 330’ is a common block, with a 100 number increase in address across the West. Add in that the 20 mile x 20 mile county common as far west as Texas was abandoned for much larger counties. This leads to street or avenue addresses that are five digits.
If you want an interesting address system see Salt Lake, and it’s zero point.
You should look up the naming system for the streets in Washington DC one day. The rules are extremely detailed and minute. Every so often a native of the area will tell me all the little rules, and I have to throw a small object at them, usually dinner rolls.
Not only are the rules for naming streets complicated, but D.C.’s street system was laid out with military defense in mind, rather than ease of travel. Every weekday, thousands of commuters can attest to the fact that it is very difficult to get into D.C., even if you are not staging an invasion.
@Aero Coaster: Wonder if the addresses were a problem for the British in 1812? They seemed to have easily found that one big white house…
@@salyluz6535 Washington, D.C. was a much smaller city 200 years ago, so that one big white house was probably pretty easy to find!
@derdin8: really good point! 👍🏽
Our house number is in the 4 thousands, but we only have 40 houses in our neighborhood! And our favorite street name is Yerlost Lane...
Here in Los Angeles, our Main Street is actually the divider/borderline between the Eastside and the westside, taking into account the numbering system. We also have a High Street out here in a city next door to LA called Inglewood 😊
In the UK, street names came a long time before house numbers - and often the road name reflected where it leads to (London Rd, Bristol Road, Church Road, Station Rd, etc). Houses only tend to need numbers once you have a postal system. I think one difference between the UK & US is the American tendency to tear down and replace anything 'old' (and we have a very different understanding of that term).
New builds can be different, though - there is an estate near me with all the roads named after RAF aircraft. It was previously the site of an RAF Maintenance Unit.
Was it Bono talked about the difference between an old bridge & a new bridge? New bridge was 300 years old, old one 1200.
The streets in our town were laid out diagonally, in the “ French Style”, starting at the river upon which we were planted. As the town grew, newer blocks were laid out in more of a grid. We’re used to it, but it confuses visitors at times.
sounds like Louisville
The radial pattern is also evident in Detroit, which confused me no end when I first lived in Detroit going to college.
Always enjoy your comparisons. Thank you!
This is the first of your videos that I've seen, and I had several LOL moments! Much appreciated right about now. Thank you.
I grew up near El Camino Real in California, it's 600 miles long and connects 21 missions. It's known as "The Royal Road". There are businesses and housing all along it.
It's _almost_ as if "The Royal Road" is the English translation of "El Camino Real".
😜
Yes, but what exists today are many individual streets that have the bells on them, and it is not by any means a street that has businesses and housing all along it. Certain sections do, but when the 5 between the US-Mexico border up to Anaheim is part of it, and 101 through most of the state is part of it, there's a whole lot of nothing on large stretches of that road. It does not meet the definition of street he's using.
You are correct that El Camino Real is not a 600 mile contiguous road, either by the definition used here or even today. It was more of a historical trail.
However, there is an “El Camino Real” which is a contiguous road of the same name which traverses from Santa Clara, CA north over 40 miles to Colma. If you also allow for that road to change names then one can follow it from it’s beginning as “Alum Rock” in east San Jose up to the middle of San Francisco where it ends as “Mission Blvd”. That traversal, while I not clocked it myself,
starting from the residential end of “Alum Rock” is on the order of about 55 to 60 miles.
I've never had an address based on milage. Instead it's block numbers each block has the addresses go up by 100. So, if you're looking for 5623, and you see 5125, you know it's 5 blocks away.
Furthermore, at least here in the Seattle area, streets are numbered. So, 5623 would be between 56th and 57th st.
That's how it is in most of the states I believe.
It's 800 house numbers per mile. 1/8 of a mile per block. He said 1000, but he's wrong. It's 800 per mile. Assuming we're on a street that is east west or north south.
@@MH-Tesla ya, that's not the case anywhere I've lived
@@LiqdPT Sorry dude. It's the standard everywhere. Lol
@@MH-Tesla I mean, the blocks are different distances apart and have to work around hills and lakes. But sure, you know better. EVERYWHERE obviously follows this standard. /s
In California, we have many very long streets. But our streets change name as they pass from one city, or county to the next. There is a street in San Jose, that passes through the city in a straight line, but changes it's name as it passes into Santa Clara. In many places on the El Camino Real, the numbers start over each time it passes into the neighboring community. In one place, the numbers are five digit on one side of the street, and four digit on the other side of the street, because on the western side of the street, you are in a different town. Many streets also run straight into a steep hill, and seemingly end, but on the other side of the hill, the street continues, along with the numbers where they left off.
In the UK, it is quite common for a city boundary to run down the middle of a street, but we still use the same numbering scheme on both sides.
My favorite street names are those that are all connected- I grew up on a street named after a lake (and the others around it were also different lakes). But my favorite street name is where my in-laws lived: Valley of the Moon Rd. The whole neighborhood is named after John Steinman books.
Depending on your exact location, your "street" address and your house position may have very different meanings. In most rural parts of Indiana at least, the USPS defines the "street" address of a mailbox, not necessarily the house it belongs to. So, for half my childhood and about ten years of my adult life since, my house number was 14000, along with just about every other house in a two mile circle since all our mailboxes were located at a point that was a mile of road away from my house.
They did, now they cooperate with the 911 system so the county does it. Back when they had route 3 box 123 as your address like my cousins did in Maryland it wasn’t much good for actually finding the house.
@@jessiec1194 My mom worked for the local post office during the transition away from that addressing standard. We were Rural Route 11 box ### for much of my early childhood. Still today, the house mentioned before has the same address 14000 West Lot ###, and the new mail carrier tends to just shove everybody's mail into random individual slots in the neighborhood collection box. My brother lives there now with his family, and it's hard telling to whom their mail will actually be delivered, especially since our mom retired from the post office several years ago now.
The original name of the Andy Griffith Show was "Mayberry RFD"
Western is actually longer than that. It's so long, it changes it's name a few times. It starts in Evanston with the name Asbury. It continues into Chicago with the name Western. After it enters Blue Island, the name changes to Dixie Hwy. When it enters Homewood, it changes to Park Ave....Total length, about 35 miles. There are a few places where it passes through two Golf Courses, but besides that, the street is continuous, with buildings around it.
I would hate to have to drive that route every day (I wonder how many Stop Lights in that 35 miles)
Then the name Western picks up again about 207th St. and goes south again through Park Forest and farther south.
In a delightful twist related to this video, I live in a neighborhood in the U.S. where all of the streets are named after British poets: Byron, Shelley, Defoe, Dryden, Lydgate, Keats, Fielding, and Tennyson. The name of our neighborhood is "Canterbury Woods".
“An elite group of integers!” Hahaha! Love it.
In new housing developments, the developer gets to name the streets. Those names are submitted to the city for approval to make sure they aren't used elsewhere around town--and are appropriate for a street name. So you might find a housing development where the streets are named for the oceans, rivers, presidents, trees (as you noted), flowers, plants, famous Americans (e.g., MLK, John Glenn), or have Native American names, or even be named after family members of the developer.
Not forgetting of course that in Richmond, Virginia some of the 50s and 60s housing developments have their streets named for birds.
What brought you to live in USA? Do you prefer one over the other, or both equally. I enjoy watching you & your sense of humor, very informative of the differences between the two countries that we would not know.
I suggest you go back a few years and watch early videos. He explains exactly what brought him to America. All of your questions are answered in many different videos.
A plane, his wife and the post recession economy brought him over.
His wife is American.
I live in northern Michigan and used to live on a street named Big Buck and next to us was Big Antler. Lot of wilderness names up here!
Yeah, the center street in the us goes by many names (center, division, main, first, etc…) and it’s really common for local roads in the us to get themes. So one neighborhood will all have tree names ( cherry, alder, maple, sequoia, elm…) and another will be elements/minerals (gypsum, copper, silicon, quartz…) and another will be named after people.
Hello Lawrence, UA-cam sensation! Very informative, as always. As for US street names, I'm surprised that Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt didn't make the list.
Washington tops the list of street names named for a person...
@@ronclark9724 And that makes perfect sense. I'm just surprised that the other presidents I named weren't on the list, as well.
It's also worth pointing out that U.S. addresses can include a letter suffix, when multiple mailing addresses share the same building. You can see this with duplex housing (where one unit will be A and the other B), and also in strip malls, where the anchor tenant at one end (often a supermarket, or something that used to be a supermarket) gets the letter A, while the other smaller businesses-- such as dollar stores, restaurants, mobile phone stores, alcohol/tobacco shops, or nail salons-- get B, C, D, and so forth as you move away from the anchor.
Also, cities in Utah have an interesting, grid-based way of numbering their streets and addresses. It's called the Lyman plan, and is actually quite elegant when you understand how it works. Something like "4200 North 1600 West" is a perfectly valid Utah address, and if you know the city's grid system, it tells you exactly where the address is located.
Woah! I can't imagine having to write that out as a return address on mailing envelopes. Thank goodness for email and texting. 🤭
I remember the first time I drove through Utah. It was SO confusing!!!
My brother lives on South Southway Drive.
The whole state of Utah is like that? Wow they REALLY don’t want any visitors lol
The addresses in Utah sound like the whole state of Indiana. I always have trouble finding houses there!
I remember reading at some point that one reason "First/1st" or even "Main" street isn't the most common in the US (and here in Canada) is that they're often renamed to something with local significance (also, "Main" is usually a central road, while "First/1st" might be near the edge of the city)
As a taxicab driver who has driven long before any form of electronic maps were available, I had to learn the numbering systems of several cities and towns. There are 19 blocks to the mile in a north/south direction in West Palm Beach, Florida, but only ten in the east/west direction. The blocks are rectangular, and also the size of the blocks can be irregular, or streets can lack intersecting streets for irregular distances, so that the number of a block may change between intersecting streets, as in the 2900 block of a street may change to the 3000 block without an intervening street. And the next town to the south, Lake Worth Beach (formerly, recently, known as Lake Worth, and also known informally as Lake Worthless) has 12 blocks to the mile north/south and a different scheme east/west. Boise, Idaho has 16 blocks to the mile in both directions except in the downtown area, where it is 14 blocks to a mile southeast/northwest, due to the streets being skewed about 33° from the rest of the city. So a "block" doesn't mean just a rectangle of urban territory bordered by streets when you are talking about addresses. It might just represent a numerical transition. And it seems a universal custom to verbalize "the 4000 block" as "the four thousand block", but say "the 3900 block" as "the thirty-nine hundred block" and not "the three thousand nine hundred block". I think this due to standardization by police and emergency dispatch systems. I hope this clears things up.
The only reason I mention this is that it is explained (indirectly) in the video that American streets have 10 blocks to the mile, and it ain't necessarily so.
I lived in England for a few years and here are some additional facts, at least in my village.
1) In the US a house number of 5 will have house 4 right across the street. In the UK the numbers on across the street will not go in the same order. House 113 right across could be 42.
2) In our village it was common not to have an actual house number but a house name. The postal workers new our house by name, not number.
3) Postal codes I found out actually are down to a much more specific part of the village while our zip codes typically will be for an entire town or city.
Having odd numbered buildings on one side and even on the other side was due to Napoleon Bonaparte. He got sick of looking for some address in Paris due to lack of standardization so when he became Emperor of France he fixed that irritation.
@@rosameryrojas-delcerro1059 that holds no water in the UK. Nasty little fascists like Napoleon had no say in our country.
There's a road around the corner to me where there is a footpath off it that has three houses along the path (there's no road access to them). They're numbered as part of the main road rather than counted separately, causes plenty of confusion!
@@RosLanta We have cul-du-sacs that do that sometimes. I used to live near one as a kid, the long street and the cul-du-sac were the same street name and the addresses just went around the curve and back straight again. Wierd.
Having spent hours delivering letters for our local council once I can say that it is more normal in England for the house opposite to be close in number and that your example of 113 being opposite 42 for example is pretty unusual. Maybe it's because you lived in a village. You are absolutely right about post codes. They are specific to a particular road and group of houses. For example, my own post code is shared only by the even numbered houses in my street which only has houses going from 1 to 79 so isn't particularly long.
Ok, this video got me curious about English streets. Is it common to have streets that change names multiple times or is this yet another "American" difference? I've lived in several places where it seemed that the street name changed to something different every block!! This can make trying to give someone directions EXTREMELY complicated! Apparently a lot of this was caused by streets that didn't initially meet when the city was first built that were later "extended" to make travel "more direct." Thankfully, at least a few of those cities are starting to try to fix the problem. They will choose the "more common" of the street names used to rename the street the entire distance (although sadly, sometimes it's only a portion of the distance). They will then add placards that state the original street as "historical." (i.e. "Historical Park Street) Sometimes, I wonder if we aren't a bit too sentimental about odd things. :)
You are right that it often happens when streets are "continued" off existing ones, as in across a field that was developed. They can also change names once they cross a township border, for instance, as they may have been developed/named separately or they may lead off at an angle from the original direction. I've never seen the "historical" placards you mentioned - we just sort of deal with it where I live :B
I've also seen online directions (and sometimes GPS instructions) that say things like "Main St becomes Oakland Ave" or whatever, to inform you that the road name changes.
Hi Gwendy. In general no. We don't have blocks so a street name remains the same even after it's been intersected by another road. I hope that helps.
I noticed this more in Ireland where some of the streets in Dublin seem to change every block. It does make navigation very difficult if you aren't familiar with the city.
Also as an FYI there are actual jobs for "naming" local streets in the UK. I've seen them advertised (I'm a Brit now living in USA). The final responsibility is the remit of a local district councils, sometimes a property developer can come up with street names, but in consultation with local authority and it should reflect the history of the local area. The example I saw was a district council adveristing for someone with good imagination and good knowledge of local history to be the street namer! Sounds like a cool job to me.
Where I live now in GA, The road I live on has 3 different numbered route names, and 3 different names. It’s weird, super confusing when I first got down here.
A good many streets here in Northwest Indiana are named after the 48 states (prior to Alaska and Hawaii). Another very common category of street names here is after trees, ie. Oak, Maple, Elm, Alder, Sycamore, etc. Some of the towns also named streets after the counties in Indiana, ie Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Vermillion, etc. Many also streets also bear the names of the 5 Great Lakes as well.
That was a beautiful scene of Indy. Love it. Would love to see more done with your drone. 😁
First!
Shit!!!
First and Main Street
@@oceanlopez4739 😛
street sizes, and layouts, I would suspect become more similar when discussing historic cities like New Orleans, Boston, St Augustine FL, etc, where cities built in the 1800's and up in the U.S. are built in the grid form
Another thing about American streets (do they do this in the UK?) is that they are often alphabetical within a category. For example, there might be a series of streets named for trees. They might go Ash, Beech, Cedar, Date, Elm, Fig, etc. If the streets are named for presidents, they'll go in the order of the presidents: Washington, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Jackson (they usually skip John Quincy Adams), van Buren, etc.
The "distance from center point" idea helps to explain why one childhood home is a 3-digit address, another was a 4-digit in the thousands and the two most recent homes are both in the four thousands (but separated by 60 miles).
The City of Lake Jackson, Texas (near Houston) was built by the founders of Dow Chemical back in 1941. They named the primary streets "This Way", "That Way", "Center Way", "Parking Way", "Circle Way", "Any Way" etc.
I have to take another ride. I saw a mural at the mall and found it entertaining, got lost on That Way. I had no idea there were more.
I was glad to see Oak Street made the list. Every town I've ever lived in or traveled to has an Oak Street.
Where I grew up in Illinois, most of the streets were named after Native American tribes or words. Cherokee, Chippewa, Pappoose... even Teepee, which always made me giggle as a child.
Another great education by Laurence!
As a native New Yorker, I encourage you to look into the way streets are named in NYC. Yes, there's a nice orderly grid in a part of Manhattan but as for the other boroughs (I'm thinking especially of Queens, where building numbers are hyphenated), there's a whole other world of naming conventions since we (all 5 boroughs) have only been a part of NYC since 1898. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughs_of_New_York_City
Why are they called boroughs? I always thought that was odd.
@@justintime5021 look for boroughs in Wikipedia. It’s an old word coming from burg.
@@jannetteberends8730 In Scotland, Edinburgh is the name, but locals say it "Edinborough."
In my old hometown of Grand Forks (North Dakota), there was an area of that small city with a Chestnut Street, Walnut St., Cottonwood St., Elmwood Drive, Spruce Court, Clover Drive, Cherry St., Cherry Lynn Drive, Oak St. , Olive St. There was also a Sleepy Hollow St., a Legend Lane, and a Shadow Road.
As always, you continue to impress me. Thank you for teaching me something new!
An interesting side item is that here in the southern US, a lot of streets change names so that on a longer street that went through wealthy or 'respectable' areas people's addresses didn't appear to be on the same street as 'less approved' community areas.
We also like to name our streets after states. I lived in San Jose California, in the Willow Glen area. I lived on Minnesota Ave. You should look it up. They did it alphabetically on the grid system. It's also true we like to name our streets after presidents and trees. Love your channel.
Also local historic people.
In Hollywood, Florida some of the streets are named after the Presidents up to Coolidge. He was the president when the land was developed in the 1920s. The streets run from the beach to the western border of the city.
A great many streets in Chico, California (my hometown) are named for trees and other herbage. In fact, five adjacent parallel streets spell out the city's name: Chestnut, Hazel, Ivy, Cherry and Orange.
That’s cool
I frequently refer to Chicago suburbs/neighborhoods as Treewater: Oakbrook, Lake Forest, Lakewood, as well as all the ones that are either a tree or water.
The longest street in the world is "Young Street" in Ontario Canada.. Young street is the main ( High ) street in Downtown Toronto, Ontario.. Young street goes back to 1793..Young street is 56 Km long..
My hometown of Alameda, CA has two streets named Park. Park St. is one of the main business districts. Parallel, and one block east, is Park Ave. which actually has a park down the center of one and a half of its blocks.
Except for once, I've only ever lived in double digit house numbers. I'm in New England. (16, 29, 32, 104, 47, and 88).
Street names included were Brush Hill, Byron, Harvard, State, Lincoln, and Endicott.
Also include several streets, one avenue, one road, and one place.
After traveling through many cities for business, I began to see that nearly all of them shared some common street names like Market, Broadway, Prospect, High, and a few others.
Currently living on Oak Street. 😁 Yes,tree names are popular as street names . Pine,Spruce and Chestnut are just a few of the others in my neighborhood.
I have lived on Morrow, Herring, Portman, Land O'Goshen, Danville, Preachersville, Crab Orchard, New Haven, Magnolia, Cardinal, Indian Creek, Stanford, Hustonville, Mark, Fuzzy Duck, and Old Shakertown.
Foothill Blvd (old route 66) runs ~70 miles from Sylmar to San Bernardino in SoCal. It spans 2 counties and many cities.
Regarding house numbers, a lot of times the house number starts with the number of the nearest cross street which makes it super easy to find the house. For example, I once lived at 10260 S.W. 134th Street, which meant that the nearest intersection to my house was the intersection of 102nd Ave and 134th Street.
In London I was flummoxes how one street can have several names (depending on neighborhood I guess). Bloomsbury Way/Oxford Street/Bayswater Road/ Notting Hill Gate etc - all the same street in the same city! But really, nothing beats the borough of Queens in NYC, where you could live at the corner of 58th Lane & 58th Street. They just gave up on street names by the time Queens was settled.
My mother-in-law lived in Wauconda, IL. Her street number was 28142.
And of course, in California, you have the El Camino Real... which, of course, takes on a variety of names, depending on if it's in a city, the countryside, a highway, or part of a freeway...
and then it can even, and does, change names in various parts of the same city over its 600+ mile length.
most of it is buried under some highway designation now, so it can no longer claim the entire 600 miles. But I can tell you are/were local -- you call it *the* El Camino, which only a local would do!
@@Jobotubular dude, I lived off it. 🤣
I love that you almost never smile, and your tone can be thought of as very stern.
Here in Brooklyn, we have a High Street. In NYC in general there aren’t many house addresses exceeding four digits, and many are three digits. Not including crazy Queens, with its streets names street, road, avenue - one after the other.
Hi Lawrence, I love your, "lost in the pond," comparisons. I never knew the street numbers were based on the distance from city center. 🤔
However, I'm rather fond of my street name, "Happy Jack Rd." 😂 We even had a dog we once named, "Happy Jack." Just thought you'd enjoy that tidbit....😉👍
A house we own is 40 South Main. It is about a block from the center of the village, it is diagonally across the street from the post office so mail is not delivered, they give us a free post office box at the post office (we rent that house out so tenant uses it). The house we live in is about 4 miles from the center of our town and our address is 4xxx. Very interesting, I never knew about how numbers were assigned.
Kind of an interesting thing with addresses, at least in the county I live in here in California.
In the unincorporated parts of the county (ie, not in an actual city) "roads" start at the westernmost county line and the numbers go up-so Road 148 is 14.8 miles east of the county line. Avenues start at the southernmost county line and go up as you head north. Now, here's the cool thing-if the address is "25632 Road 148", you're on Road 148, .32 miles north of Avenue 256. It actually makes it easy to find a place out in the country if you pay attention to the avenues and roads you're on.
We do have a 'High Street' in my town, but it's a relatively minor road with few claims to fame. When someone says a place is in 'the high street', they almost invariably mean the main shopping street in the town centre, whose name changes with alarming regularity from Carr Street, to Tavern Street, and then to Westgate Street.
Places in North Carolina follow the English tradition a lot. Just around me, we have MacPherson Church Rd, Mclean Chapel Church Rd, Mt. Pisgua Church Rd., Leaflet Church Rd, Barbecue Church Rd., etc.
I've lived on streets in two different English villages simply called The Street. It's amusing when US websites tell me I live at "The".
I’ll add that in my small city at least, 4-digit street addresses are for streets running north-south, while 5-digit addresses are for streets running east-west, which tend to dominate in my town.
My favorite street name is Captain Kirk Court in North Las Vegas, Nevada. (Sadly, I never saw it with my own eyes, even though I lived in Las Vegas for several years.)
One thing that is easy to remember for roads, streets and even major highways. The streets run east to west and avenues run north to south. Examples would be US-1 or I-95 or I-75 ( north- south arteries ) while I-10 or I-84, (route 66) run east to west.
I live in Maryland, and here in the mid-Atlantic up thru the New England area, you actually do see some houses/businesses with addresses in the single and double digits. Not too surprising since this area was founded by the British 4 centuries ago. It can readily be seen in a lot of the architecture in this area.
Regarding naming streets after trees: here in Johnson City, TN, there's a whole there's a whole section of town known as the "Tree Streets" because... ta da da! The area's names after trees! Walnut, Maple, Pine, Locust, Poplar, Cedar Place, Laurel Avenue, Holly Street and Magnolia Avenue. Every year in the fall, the whole area has what is known as the "Tree Streets Yard Sale" where all the residents put out tables in front of their houses and sell everything you can imagine. if you get there early (around 7AM despite the sale starting at 9AM) you can get some incredible bargains!
I was going to mention the Tree Streets, but you beat me to it!
@@Craspic So you must be a Johnson City resident, or are you a Washington County resident?
@@kalinystazvoruna8702 Johnson City.
@@Craspic Well, maybe I'll run into you during this year's Tree Streets Yard Sale. :)
The subdivision I grew up in and the one where I bought my first house all had streets named after British towns/communities: Winchester, Nottingham, Wessex, Windsor, Lancaster, Canterbury. Most subdivisions here have street names that follow a theme, usually related to the subdivision name. I recently found out that one of the older neighborhoods in my hometown had several streets named for the daughters of the original family that first owned the land: Camille, Cathryn and Cora, for example.
I used to live on Robin Hood Rd in a neighborhood called Sherwood Forest in the USA.
I bought my first house in a neighborhood that has streets named for 60’s rock stars. Dylan, Joplin, Jagger etc.
The world's longest street is Yonge Street. It starts in Toronto Canada and ends at the border with Minnesota 1896 km (1178 miles) away.
In the village of Kimberly Ontario is "Lanktree Boulevard", it was named after a cousin of my father, who had served as Township Of Eurphasia clerk for forty years.
Nothing to do with street names but I always found it ironic (at least on my neck of the woods) that subdivisions are named after things they replaced, Orange Grove, Citrus Ridge, Pine Ridge, Bear Cove… I can go all day.
I have lived on Cedar St, in Washington state.
But wanted to speculate that most of these non-presidential non-numbered street names likely are words referencing some local well-known landscape feature.
This is easy enough with Park or Lake, as these features are not just recognizable, but also likely to have adjacent roads to get to them or around them. But the trees?
Many areas early in their settlement will have some particularly old or impressive tree that often becomes a meeting spot, later a town center or the foundation of a greenspace. Oak and elm tend to grow pretty big and handle bad weather well. Maple and cedar follow behind. And when you start naming streets after trees, Pine can't be far behind. Pine can also be planted at the city center, grown quickly and big, and become the gathering place to kick off Christmas festivities.
It's a tradition for some to celebrate new births with plantlife; flowers at weddings & births (extended into anniversaries & birthdays), potted plants for new businesses & housewarmings, trees for more established things like organizations, treaties, new townships. If you're going for a new municipality, you want a long-lived tree, preferably a strong one. Oak & elm are the strongest.
For some regions, they apply a name unique to the area or perhaps there is an unusually large or conspicuous growth of them (Sequoia, Redwood in California; Saguaro, Cactus, Joshua Tree, Yucca in Arizona; Palmetto, Magnolia, Cottonwood in the South).
For Philadelphia, the Colonial founders had a more intentional reason. Instead of posting street signs, (which were completely useless to illiterate citizens,) William Penn decided to plant a certain type of tree down the side of each street, to indicate the name of the street (Chestnut trees planted on Chestnut street, and so on.) That way, illiterate citizens could navigate the city.