The neighborhood I grew up in had a scheme that made sense once you were told what it was, but you’d never figure it out looking around.
There was a center point to the town where all addresses started, as you went away from that point in any direction the numbers got bigger. Numbers are 3 digits. Each block away from the center gets a new top digit, so the four blocks that touch one of the axis lines are 100, one block away is 200 etc. There’s a North, South, East and West, so there can be a 200 North Something St. and a 200 South Something St. and they will occasionally get each other’s mail.
One side of the street gets the even tens, the other side gets the fives. So 330 West Example Ave is across the street from 335 West Example Ave.
Many homes sat on multiple lots, and they skipped the unused lot numbers (the tens digit) and even then they would skip a number in between, so it’s not unusual to see 205 East Example ave on the corner, and 235 East Example ave is next door.
Apartments or townhouses with multiple addresses on the same lot get a letter suffix, so you might have a 635B West Name St.
There are other context clues, like the North-South roads are “streets” and the East-West roads are “avenues”. But still it would be difficult to grasp this system if you weren’t told about it because “There’s three houses along this block, why are the numbers 30 apart?”
BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
What kind of sick fuck…
poppy@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Wasn’t on any sort of grid pattern either. The roads just kinda meandered around willy nilly and would sometimes loop back on itself with random “bridge” connecting roads which I know isn’t extremely uncommon but definitely added to the difficulty of navigation.
WamGams@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Ahh yes, you grew up in a west coast subdivision. I am assuming either a late 60s to early 80s split level or a slightly more upscale true two story neighborhood, where every house is one of either two models, or a mirror image of those models to create the illusion of variation.
It is always funny, the first time you go to a friend’s house and use the bathroom, their mom will offer to show you, but you would just be like, “I know where it is.”
poppy@lemm.ee 8 months ago
You got some right! All 60s-70s houses. Mine was split level. Decidedly middle class. However, it was smack in the Midwest and basically all the houses are about as different as houses built in that era can be. Now, the subdivision that popped up in the field next to my neighborhood in the 00s were cookie cutter 3-4 of the same houses (but sometimes the floor plans/elevations were mirrored to make it seem different haha).