When I visited the U.S. last year, I was amazed about the high house numbers: You see tiny little streets with house numbers like 4350 or something. Since I don’t think this street has more than 4,000 houses (not even in America),there must be some method in this madness. In Britain, they often simply count the houses: The first one in the street is 1, zhe next one 2, then 3 and so on. In Germany, we have the same system, but on one side, there are all the odd numbers, and on the other all the even ones (so 1 is opposite to 2 and next to 3, 3 is opposite to 4 and between 1 and 5 etc.).
I have read that New York has got a pretty sophisticated system which allows you (if you search a building in a certain avenue) to calculate the number of the street crossing the avenue at the point where the house is simply out of the number of this house. Does anyone know more about the American numvbering system?
Usually American cities have a baseline streets that cross in the central region. Frequently one is called “Main” Street, and the other major cross street is named something else.
Then we count the addresses out block by block: The buildings and houses on X St. in the first block west of Main St would be numbered 1 - 99 West X St (or sometimes the first block is 100-199). The second block is 100-199, and in a really spread-out city like L.A. you get five digit addresses if the location is far enough out from the center.
Even if a street is only a block long, it follows the central numbering scheme based on its location in the city.
It probably varies a bit, but I used to do this for a living (assign house numbers and manage street naming) as a part of my job as Planning Director.
Using UTM coordinates a locality (in my case it was a rural county of about 15,000) is divided up in a grid system. Streets either run North/South or East/West and the numbers started at the County line and increased as you went East or North. For our purposes each “block” was 600 feet long, and each 600’ block was further divided so that you could figure out which number to assign TO THE DRIVEWAY. You didn’t assign numbers to the houses because in the country a driveway may start at one point on the road but wind around behind another house. That was always a difficult concept for some folks to understand. You also had to skip a few numbers (based on the land division pattern) so that you could assign correct numbers to infill houses.
There are few things that tick people off more than changing their address - I know, I’ve had to do it.
Street naming is another matter altogether.
It probably varies a bit, but I used to do this for a living (assign house numbers and manage street naming) as a part of my job as Planning Director.
Using UTM coordinates a locality (in my case it was a rural county of about 15,000) is divided up in a grid system. Streets either run North/South or East/West and the numbers started at the County line and increased as you went East or North. For our purposes each “block” was 600 feet long, and each 600’ block was further divided so that you could figure out which number to assign TO THE DRIVEWAY. You didn’t assign numbers to the houses because in the country a driveway may start at one point on the road but wind around behind another house. That was always a difficult concept for some folks to understand. You also had to skip a few numbers (based on the land division pattern) so that you could assign correct numbers to infill houses.
There are few things that tick people off more than changing their address - I know, I’ve had to do it.
Street naming is another matter altogether.