# Street Grid system in cities around the country **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 21, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171 "2009-08-21T04:59:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/21 "2011-02-15T17:43:47Z")
The champion for grid systems, to my mind, is Salt Lake City. Except in “the Avenues” section to the Northeast, the streets form a regular grid with 100 house numbers to the block, with all the evens on the south and odds on the North. Furthermore, all addresses are given in two parts – giving the distance East/West of the center of the grid _AND_ North/South of it. From the address, you can tell exactly where in the city the address is, right down to how far down the block and which side of the street it’s on. In fact, the numbering scheme extends beyond Salt Lake City itself into the suburbs, using the same grid center (which is Temple Square in SLC). Other Utah towns have similar street schemes, with different centers. In fact, a lot of western and midwest cities have pretty regular street grids, including (IIRC) Lincoln , Nebraska. ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/22 "2011-02-15T18:52:49Z")
I just remembered…in New York City, specifically Manhattan, there’s a website that lists several formulas for computing what cross Avenues will be closest to any given address. I can’t find the website, but maybe someone from Manhattan can elaborate on it. Apparently, a new block doesn’t mean that the numbers advance by 100. ETA: [http://www.cdny.org/streetfinder.html](http://www.cdny.org/streetfinder.html) I see it was in the other thread referenced above. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/23 "2011-02-15T20:51:42Z")
> [@](#): > > I can’t find the website, but maybe someone from Manhattan can elaborate on it. Apparently, a new block doesn’t mean that the numbers advance by 100. No, it’s not like Salt Lake – but the numbers on streets running east and west advance by roughly 100 per block. New York magazine used to publish a little pocket guide listing the street numbers by block for both streets and avenues. Certainly that info must be on smartphone apps by now. by the way, in Manhattan, twenty blocks north-south is a mile. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/24 "2011-02-16T03:18:14Z")
Boston’s Back Bay started out with a grid, with streets crossing Beacon St, Commonwealth Ave, Newbury St running alphabetically outward from the BostonPubpoc Gardens-Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, and Gloucester, and Hereford Sts, but then the alpha pattern is broken By Mass. Ave. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/25 "2011-02-16T21:41:26Z")
Sorry about the zombie awakening. I followed the link here from the previous zombie thread. Oy. I’ll stop now. ---
**Author:** ![west\_town\_ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@west\_town\_ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/west_town_ed)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/26 "2011-02-20T03:19:23Z")
Oxford Steet in Sydney runs through several inner-east suburbs before ending in Bondi Junctions. As you walk the street the numbers will get larger then as you cross a suburb boundry, the numbers become smaller then at some point become larger again. Not as crazy as Tokyo but still… ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/27 "2011-02-22T12:06:39Z")
> [@west\_town\_ed](#): > > Oxford Steet in Sydney runs through several inner-east suburbs before ending in Bondi Junctions. As you walk the street the numbers will get larger then as you cross a suburb boundry, the numbers become smaller then at some point become larger again. Not as crazy as Tokyo but still… That’s how it is in the Los Angeles 'burbs too. Every little city has to have their own special address scheme. Extra fun when you’re trying to find an address on a street that runs along a boundary, or running through the million small unincororated areas that are scattered everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/28 "2011-02-22T13:47:43Z")
> [@justin\_caise](#): > > I was trying to find an address in Tokyo and the house numbers were all scrambled. I was told they number the houses sequentially as to when they were built. First house on street = 1, etc. Taxi drivers must all have navi systems… This is an urban legend. Numbers run around a particular block. However, they don’t have a provision for what to do when lots are subdivided. We live on a dead-end street where 9 houses share the same address. > [@suranyi](#): > > It’s worse than that. The whole Japanese address system is very different from almost anywhere in the world. The vast majority of streets do not have names, because addresses are not based on house number/street name. Instead, addresses are based on a system of areas containing smaller areas, until you get to an area no bigger than a few blocks. Then you get to the house numbers, which, as you say, are numbered in order of construction. > > Generally, larger areas are named, smaller areas are numbered. > > We can imagine this idea if we were say, for example, that someone lives in Illinois, Chicago, Rogers Park, and then in, say, division 10 of Rogers Park, and then in block 2 of division 10. And then his house number is 8 because it was the eighth house built on that block. On the right track, except that there is another named area missing. In the above example, Roger Park would be divided up into neighborhoods, which are names, and then divisions within the named neighborhoods, and then blocks and then addresses, which the numbers go around the block, as per above. Since the divisions of the neighborhoods are arbitrary, and not prominently marked, knowing where you are does zilch for helping you find where you are going, unless you have a map with you. In the pre-internet and google maps era, any salesman worth their salt would carry a map of the city around with them. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > The champion for grid systems, to my mind, is Salt Lake City. Except in “the Avenues” section to the Northeast, the streets form a regular grid with 100 house numbers to the block, with all the evens on the south and odds on the North. Furthermore, all addresses are given in two parts – giving the distance East/West of the center of the grid _AND_ North/South of it. From the address, you can tell exactly where in the city the address is, right down to how far down the block and which side of the street it’s on. > > In fact, the numbering scheme extends beyond Salt Lake City itself into the suburbs, using the same grid center (which is Temple Square in SLC). Having grown up in Salt Lake, I had no idea that you could ever get lost in a city. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/29 "2011-02-22T14:54:45Z")
Detroit has 3 different street systems. When the French first built it, they built a grid where the streets ran parallel and perpendicular to the river - and would every so often change orientation as the river turned. Then there were a number of radially built roads emanating from downtown, although they don’t all start from the exact same place. Most of these roads remain major thoroughfares today, completely ignoring the second mile-road grid that was made aligned with the cardinal compass directions and continues well out into the suburbs in all directions. While the grid in pretty nice in the suburbs to allow a variety of ways to get where you want, those radial roads make travel in certain directions much easier. Of course, the surrounding areas often had some of their own developments before the mile-road grids came in, and what passes for “major rivers” in the area often break up the system as well. As to addresses, they’re all over the place. In my area you have a 5 digit address if you’re on a N-S street, and a 4 digit if you’re on a E-W. There exists a road (South Blvd) that forms the boundary between two cities, where the address is “East South Blvd” on one side of the street, and “West South Blvd” on the other side due to the two cities having different ideas where they should be reckoning from. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/30 "2011-02-22T17:58:48Z")
Detroit area is gridded like a sheet of graph paper. 8 mile rd. is called Base Line in some spots. It is the start of the grid. Most roads are easy to figure out, 9 mile rd., 10 mile rd. 11 , etc. You can figure the pattern. That is why it drives me nuts when someone cuts across 3 lanes of traffic to run up an exit ramp. You would figure there was a clue that they were coming up on a mile rd. What is cool is the northern suburban roads give clues about what mile road it would be. Maple rd. has 5 letters in it. It is 15 mile… Lone Pine is 18. Square Lake 19 etc. It is cool once it dawns on you. It goes on quite a ways. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/31 "2011-02-22T20:10:00Z")
Arlington County in Virginia consists of a bunch of neighborhoods that, like the Seattle area, didn’t talk to each other when laying out streets. This created a problem when the varoius neighborhoods grew to the point where their streets joined together, often with a different name in each neighborhood. To make matters worse, some names were quite popular so various neighborhoods would have a street with the same name but none of them had anything to do with the other. IIRC, it was the postal service that came up with the solution when postal zones were implemented in '43. Borrowing from the DC alphabetical grid, named streets were established staring with “Bell” at the Potomac in the Rosslyn neighbroohood, progressing toward Falls Church and “Arizona”. Named streets are divided between north & south at Arlington Boulevard (US 50). Numbered streets start at 1[sup]st[/sup] on either side of Arlington Boulevard, going up to 40[sup]th[/sup] to the north; 36[sup]th[/sup] to the south. Historic routes, such as Glebe Road, Lee Highway, Colubmia Pike, etc. are exempt from the grid. Also exempt from the grid are named drives, which were constructed over former trolley lines. ---
**Author:** ![ChicagoTom25](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@ChicagoTom25](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChicagoTom25)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/32 "2011-02-24T01:25:39Z")
> [@TokyoPlayer](#): > > This is an urban legend. Numbers run around a particular block. However, they don’t have a provision for what to do when lots are subdivided. We live on a dead-end street where 9 houses share the same address. > > On the right track, except that there is another named area missing. In the above example, Roger Park would be divided up into neighborhoods, which are names, and then divisions within the named neighborhoods, and then blocks and then addresses, which the numbers go around the block, as per above. > > Since the divisions of the neighborhoods are arbitrary, and not prominently marked, knowing where you are does zilch for helping you find where you are going, unless you have a map with you. In the pre-internet and google maps era, any salesman worth their salt would carry a map of the city around with them. > > Having grown up in Salt Lake, I had no idea that you could ever get lost in a city. I didn’t grow up in Salt Lake but I did have to travel there for work several times. I work in [human resource management](http://www.paycor.com) and we had a branch in Salt Lake. You couldn’t get lost in that town. It’s very easy to navigate. The worst city to travel in is Pittsburgh. Their streets are so confusing and intersect at weird angles. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/33 "2011-02-24T16:50:29Z")
I grew up in a town that was about 80% random roads, since it was in the mountains and a lot of roads just followed the contours of the mountain. The numbering system was as if someone took a grid and laid it over a map of the city, then did the numbering system as if it were a grid system. So in practice you’d be on a street where the numbers might not actually be sequential. It was difficult at times to navigate. Then I moved to Salt Lake and was totally spoiled by the ease of finding any address. The mountain ranges helped with directions as well. > [@gonzomax](#): > > What is cool is the northern suburban roads give clues about what mile road it would be. Maple rd. has 5 letters in it. It is 15 mile.. Lone Pine is 18. Square Lake 19 etc. It is cool once it dawns on you. It goes on quite a ways. Uhm, either your math is wrong or I don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![jfk52917](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6f9a4e/32.png) [@jfk52917](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jfk52917)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/34 "2012-07-24T06:59:39Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Detroit area is gridded like a sheet of graph paper. 8 mile rd. is called Base Line in some spots. It is the start of the grid. Most roads are easy to figure out, 9 mile rd., 10 mile rd. 11 , etc. You can figure the pattern. That is why it drives me nuts when someone cuts across 3 lanes of traffic to run up an exit ramp. You would figure there was a clue that they were coming up on a mile rd. > What is cool is the northern suburban roads give clues about what mile road it would be. Maple rd. has 5 letters in it. It is 15 mile.. Lone Pine is 18. Square Lake 19 etc. It is cool once it dawns on you. It goes on quite a ways. Never noticed that. I’ve lived in the southern suburbs of metro Detroit and metro’s grid isn’t the worst except for the fact that some of the suburbs (Ecorse, River Rouge, Lincoln Park, Allen Park, Melvindale) all have French-grid streets. In addition, Dix-Toledo has to be one of the most annoying roads, especially in Southgate. Detroit’s streets aren’t the worst, but something I never understood until recently theEastside and Westside. What’s funny is that Woodward, which defines the border between the Eastside and Westside, doesn’t go directly north-south. Plus, the street names are pretty odd sometimes. Livernois, Charlevoix, Lahser, Goethe, Freud, and Cadieux are all pronounced in funny ways (liver-noise, shar-le-boy, lah-sher, go-thee, frood, cad-jew). We have a lot of street name-changes, too. (Springwells becomes Westside, Mack becomes Martin Luther King, McNichols becoming 6 Mile, Fenkell becoming 5 Mile, 8 Mile/Baseline. The list is endless.) ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171/35 "2012-07-27T14:03:21Z")
This is not really about Chicago … it’s more of a MPSIMS thing anyway. So late but … moving. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/street-grid-system-in-cities-around-the-country/507171.md?page=1)