House numbers in America

Factual Questions
21

This applies mostly to the west (look at a map of the US and you’ll see a bunch of square-ish states in the mid- and south-west.) Plots were divided up for settlers by various acts of Congress when those areas were federal territories and when they became states they drew convenient boundaries along the lines. Take a look at the http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/nebraska_map.html"]county map for Nebraska and you’ll see what I mean.

Most states sub-divide themselves into counties; counties are then divided into towns, villages, cities, and so forth; all of these terms meaning slightly different things in each state.

An “incorporated” town simply means that a given area has a municipal government which provides services such as police and fire departments, schools, and so on. Rural areas are sometimes not part of a town or city and will have services provided to them directly by the county government. Sometimes, you’ll have towns or cities with incorporated and unincorporated districts (usually the “downtown” area is the incorporated part.)

22

Whoops - that links should be: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/nebraska_map.html

23

Well, the first rule, of course, is that with 50 states, there are probably 70 rules. As noted by friedo, the primary political division within a state is a county. (In Louisiana, the equivalent political entity is a parish and in a couple of states–possibly Alaska and one other–the equivalent is a borough, but parishes and boroughs serve the same purpose with different names. This will, of course, be confusing when one encounters a state in which a particular variety of city organization is called a borough, but go back and reread my first sentence.)

Counties are the primary entity responsible for maintaining police protection and roads and such. They have no power to enact laws, but they may establish ordinances for the regulation of things like traffic or the prohibition of open fires that come under the jurisdiction of police and fire protection or road and traffic control.

In many states, there is a subset below county called a town in the East and Northeast and a township in the midwest that may have further derived powers to regulate building codes and such. (Beginning with the original Northwest Territory, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, the territories were surveyed into townships, originally squares five miles on a side, later six miles on a side and the townships were surveyed in mile-square grids. This practice has carried over into some, not all, more western states.)

This is the general layout of the original government plan. However, people do not tend to live diffusely spread across the landscape, they often clump into hamlets, villages, towns, cities, and metropoles. Recognizing that people generally prefer local control, most states have rules permitting cities to take back some of the authority initially granted to counties. In fact, if the city is large enough, it may be permitted to enact ordinances that would usually appear to be the prerogative of the state. At the lower end of this spectrum of communities, each state must decide at what point a community can begin usurping county authority. Usually the distinction made is between incorporated or unincorporated, and is usually predicated on a set limit of population.

Thus, the county seat of Geauga County, Chardon, is large enough to be an incorporated village (and I do not know the minimum size that Ohio sets for incorporation). Thus, they are able to control their own destiny regarding village streets (whereas the townships must get approval from the county in order to change rights of way), sewers, building codes, etc. To their frustration, for each of the last few decennial censuses, Chardon always falls a couple of hundred people short of the magic number of 5,000 which would allow them to petition to be recognized as a city, granting them more powers of governance and taxation.

I have used real-world examples of the sort of things that might affect cities, counties, incorporation, etc. in order to give a flavor of what is going on. However, my post will be followed by multiple posts pointing out the differences between Ohio and various other states (and, perhaps, differences within Ohio for regions that were settled at different times and fell under different Federal or state charters when they were surveyed).

24

Boston seems to use the British system. The numbers generally run outward from the center of town, usually, and are incremented by small amounts (often two or four, sometimes more, especially downtown where big scyscrapers replaced several smaller buildings). Mostly evens are on the left as the numbers increase. Along the sides of Boston Common, the numbers increase by only 1, and extra doorways are given an extra half (IIRC, Cheers is 84½ Beacon). And there are exceptions to every rule. Oh, and the concept of a grid is pretty foreign around here.

Some streets do run into the thousands (Washington Street is probably the longest, hitting the Dedham border well past 5000), but only the really long ones.

25

That’s the township (6x6 miles) and section (1 mile square – 36 sections in a township). It’s how rural areas were divided up for sale by the government. Like city blocks, it doesn’t apply to the east coast.

In some areas the section lines do seem to influence the boundaries of cities. For example, take a look at the Detroit and Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan areas and note the number of square or nearly square suburbs.

Incorporation is the state giving a city to right to be a city. That is, the state grants a charter to the city which gives the city certain rights and responsibilities having to do with taxing, passing ordinances, policing, etc. Every state but one has its own system of incorporating cities, usually with several classes of cities and towns where the classes of larger cities have more rights and responsibilities. The exception is Hawaii which has no incorporated cities or towns.

Unincorporated areas are simply those outside incorporated cities. While usually rural, most metropolitan areas have suburban areas that are unincorporated.

26

r_k: You might be interested in how Salt Lake City and a few other towns in Utah have portions (the old/original portions, IIRC) laid out: grid coordinates. Thus, you end up with addresses like: 3 W 300 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84101 (that’s some Bistro listed in the PacBell online Yellow Pages). The point of origin for the grid is Temple Square.

27

The OP by r_k was basically asking:

Why do US adresses have such huge numbers?

Glad you asked this - it has always been something I have wondered about too. Reading the replies above does not clarify things much.

It seems like the answer is that they have such long streets, based on grid systems. When I was in Canada (same sort of town planning as US, I suspect) the streets went on for 10’s of kilometers in a straight line!!

This may not seem strange to North Americans, but you dont get that in Australia or the UK. If a highway goes between 2 towns the numbers start again in the new town.

So: long streets = big house numbers

28

I have heard–but don’t know for a fact–that in Tokyo, buildings are (or were; I can’t imagine the practice is still ongoing) numbered according to the order in which they were built, regardless of where on the street they are located.

The first Japanese to give Westerners a usable map of Tokyo was crucified for this crime.

29

Not necessarily. Grid numbering can give big numbers even when there are no long streets. The number tells you how far you are from the grid origin, not from the end of the street.

For delivery jobs, grid numbering is a godsend. Even if you’re totally unfamiliar with the area, you can tell that to get from 4500 East 12th to 4600 East 15th, you just have to go three blocks south and one block east. And no matter how lost you are, if you can see two street signs (east-west numbered and north-south numbered), you can quickly find your location on a map.

30

Mr2001 beat me to it by a single post. Here in Phoenix, we have this exact grid system. If a house is 18 miles from the center of the grid (and still in Phoenix), on a street exactly 3 houses long, the address might be 18625 W. Street St.

Also–some streets continue the same name even if they are broken up. For example, Osborn Rd. is called Osborn Rd. along its entire length, even though there are several dead-ends along the way. The street picks up after the obstacle (mountain, freeway, etc) with the same name.

Also, if a street changes name at a city limit between Phoenix and a suburb (once you cross the line from Phoenix into Glendale, Dunlap Rd is magically renamed Olive Rd) the addresses continue as before, right to the end of the metropolitan area, which is something like 60 miles wide. I know people whose address numbers are in the 30000 range. This is 30 miles out from the center of the grid, but still in the Phoenix Metro area.

Just an example from my town, but I’m sure there are others all over the US.

31

Yes, I can see how that would make sense. So I guess Americans must have a real hard time finding their way around London and other European cities?

BTW there are a few streets in the UK with numbers that go into four figures, even with houses numbered consecutively in odds and evens - I know Bristol Road in Birmingham goes up to about 1100. These are usually main highways that cut right across cities from one side to the other. On such long roads, the odds side and evens side oftne get very out of synch, so say 500 on the evens side could be opposite 325 on the odds side, so resetting the numbers at each block makes sense.

I guess you Americans figured this out better than we did (but then you did have a “clean slate” to start from!)

32

Maybe some Americans do, but do note from the above posts that many parts of the states only have the British system. I, for one, never came across any radically different system in any of the places I have lived, either in New York or in Germany, and a lot of this thread has been completely new to me (thanks for the OP!)

BTW, most German cities and towns use a similar system with even numbers going up by twos on one side of the street and odd ones going up by twos on the other. There are some exceptions however. In what is sometimes known as “Berlin numbering” (it must be widespread in Berlin, although I am not sure how widespread), the numbers go up by ones on one side and then turn around and continue to go up by ones in the other direction on the other side of the street (think of a backgammon board). I.e. in a short street, 5 houses long, one side would be 1-2-3-4-5 and houses facing those on the other side would be 10-9-8-7-6. I used to live in such a street (in another city) and it did take some getting used to.

IIRC, part of Mannheim does however have a very unique grid-address system.

33

The longer it goes on, the more complicated it gets…

[ul][li]I live in 27a, which shares a front door with 27c. [/li][li]Just to the left of our front door is the front door for 27b which is the upstairs flat. [/li][li]To the right of us is a separate part of the house with its own front garden and separate access to the street - this is known as “27 End Cottage”.Behind us there is a mechanics workshop - letters to him are addressed “27 - rear of”[/ul]Just imagine the fun we have each morning exchanging mis-delivered letters over the garden fence - how we laugh!! :rolleyes:[/li]
Grim

34

I’m actually a guy that assigns addresses.

In our county, we use a mile marker system. For instance, a house located 3250 feet up a road would get and address of 0615 or 3250/5280 (move the decimal point 3 places). A house 15350 feet up a road would get 15350/5280 or 2907. With a little bit of thinking, emergency services can tell that the first house is about .6 mile up the road. The second house is 2.9 miles up the road.

The long roads can produce some pretty big numbers.

Odd numbers on the left, even numbers on the right.

Works pretty good.

35

The Italian city of Florence has a fairly odd system. From this site, http://www.arca.net/tourism/info/street.htm:

I know this system certainly confused me when I first arrived in Florence…

36

Is that an actual street name? My last name is Osborn so it sounds funny to hear it as a street name.

Back to the OT, in the suburbs of Philadelphia we use the even-odd numbering, mainly because of the short, winding roads. An interesting trait of Levittown (PA & NY I assume) is that the town is divided into sections, each with a name. Every street in the section starts with the same first letter. Also the is one main street (a drive) that every other road connects to.

Example: A section called Peachtree. Peachtree Dr is the main road and every Lane, Rd, or St (like Pebble Road, Post Lane, Plum St) connects to Peachtree Dr. It’s great for navigating if you know the system.

37

I’ve seen some pretty horrid numbering schemes in some town and cities in America, I must admit. Los Alamos NM has a little subdivision in which there are loop roads shaped like a C or a U, and somebody got the “brilliant” idea of numbering from the ends (BOTH ends) towards the middle, so 12 and 14 would be on the left side of the U while 13 and 15 would be on the right side of the U. There are also some numbered streets with the same name (number) which have nothing to do with each other, so you just had to learn that if the house number is within such-and-such a range, it must be THAT “34th Street”, not the “34th Street” in the other part of town.

Lots of American cities and towns have several small residential streets that are discontiguous. The road just stop, dead-end somewhere, and then pick up again at some point off in the same direction. Sometimes the street numbers helpfully allocate a range of addresses to the same oblivion as the missing section of road; sometimes they just pick up where they left off; and sometimes they begin with a totally different and unrelated numbering scheme, e.g., the last number in one section as 437 and when the street resumes existence on the far side of a park and a highway the first number is 7005.

Athens GA has a subdivision in which a street makes a long slow loop and crosses itself and continues on without acquring a new name in the process, so you have the “+” intersection of Smith Forrester Road and Smith Forrester Road (that’s not the name, I can’t remember what it’s called), undistinguished by so much as a “N” or a “S” let alone “Upper” and “Lower”. The house numbers are not marked out by the road where you can easily read them so you can drive for a ways before establishing what number you’re at and whether they are ascending or descending as you go. So you’re looking for the 1300 block and you determine that you’re in the 5800 block and going up. You turn around and hit the intersection of Smith Forrester and Smith Forrester. You decide to turn to see if you hit low numbers. First numbered house you can find is 2300 followed by 2340. You do a U-turn and are again at the intersection of Smith Forrester and Smith Forrester. Perhaps you turn right this time, or maybe you try going straight. Do you remember for sure which of the 4 legs you came in on? Know where you’ve been? Have any idea which two are joined together as a loop and which two lead away from the loop? Does your head hurt yet?

38

Correction - some American cities did. As has already been explained, different cities use different systems or non-systems:

I lived in Denver for sometime before moving to the Bay Area. Denver has a very logical naming and numbering system and a strict adherence to street names that extends out into all its suburbs. I lived on a street two blocks long and had a 5 digit street address because I was out near 120th Ave. While living there, I essentially got in the habit of simply ignoring the municipality in street addresses - you didn’t need it. It was also nice to be able to read an address and know roughly where it was.

That bit me a few times when I moved to the Bay Area and discovered that <number> + <street> wasn’t sufficient - when, Claremont, for instance, went from Berkeley into Oakland the damn numbering started over at some arbitrary base. Over on the Peninsula we have a long street called El Camino Real that runs most of the length, and the numbering changes whimsically every few blocks as you progress through Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto, etc, and experience whatever numbering systems each of these city governments determined to be right and proper. Some of these places even decide that some street in their section rates as a divider and divides their section into “East” and “West” El Camino Real, so that you alternate between these designators (as you drive north or south on it - actually, it runs NW and SE, but it seems like north and south). My residential street manages to have three different numbering schemes in the space of 10 blocks, some 4 digit, some 5. Streets change names as they cross municipalities, too.

39

North American cities have taken orthogonal town planning to the extreme, but although gridded street layouts are rare in the UK (I can only think of Milton Keynes and central Glasgow) there are some continental examples that are older than you might have guessed.

The French developed the bastide system of town planning in the Middle Ages. There are lots of small French towns with gridded street plans and Paris has a pretty orthogonal layout, although it was planned that way in the 1850s-'60s.
They also exported the idea further afield - look at this map of Barcelona for instance.

I can’t think of anywhere outside the USA and Canada where they’ve taken up the street and block numbering system though.

40

Chukhung mentioned Florence - Venice is even weirder. Each of the city’s six sestieri has houses numbered independently, from 1 up to several thousand. Streets don’t come into it, the address will just be, say, San Marco 3487. If you’re lucky, the address might also mention the street, but that’s not much use because (a) many streets have two or even three equally vaild names, and (b) many of these names are duplicated, even within a sestiere.

I’d hate to be a postman in Venice… :slight_smile: