Suburbs that have their own street grid, the main city's grid, or a mix of both

[KCRoadFan]

When I look around metro areas on Street View, one thing that captures my attention is how the various suburbs differ when it comes to their address numbers. Some suburbs - most often the smaller, inner-ring ones closer to the main city - will simply use the city's street grid, whereas others - mainly ones that are further out, which presumably started out as rural towns that later grew and eventually became part of the larger metro area - will have their own street grids, with their origin point usually being at the heart of the downtown district (that being the original townsite). Other suburbs will have a hybrid street grid, where the central, more established portion will have its own street grid, with newer, further-out sections using the main city's grid.

From a personal standpoint, I know that there are suburbs of all three grid types in the Kansas City area, where I live. In Jackson County, Missouri (where most of KCMO itself is located), two of the biggest suburbs - Lee's Summit and Blue Springs - use their own grids exclusively, each one divided into quadrants. Independence, meanwhile, has a hybrid grid, with the central area (from just south of 23rd Street to Kentucky Road, and from Forest Avenue to Lee's Summit Road) using a grid that centers on the courthouse square, while the rest of Independence uses KC's grid. Across the river, in Clay County, Liberty is similar; most of it uses its own grid, but some outlying portions (especially subdivisions west of I-35) use KC's grid. Over in Platte County, Parkville and Platte City also have hybrid grids; however, the "central area" with its own numbers is a lot smaller in the case of Parkville, with most of the subdivisions using KC's grid. In all three counties, most of the closer, smaller suburbs (Riverside, Gladstone, North KC, Raytown, etc.) just use the main KC grid.

Over on the Kansas side, Johnson County is far more uniform: Overland Park, Lenexa, Shawnee, Merriam, Mission, Prairie Village, and Leawood all use the main Kansas City grid, as well as the smaller suburbs in the northeast part of the county. Most of Olathe, too, also uses the KC grid, although the part nearest downtown has its own grid. Gardner, too, has a hybrid grid like Olathe does.

Finally, KCK has an entirely separate grid, which extends across most of Wyandotte County - however, in that county, the central portion of Bonner Springs has its own grid.

What are some examples of the different "types" of suburbs in your metro areas - ones that have their own street grids, follow that of the main city, or use a mix of both?

[I-55]

Indianapolis' street grid runs all the way up into Hamilton County past Carmel and Westfield. The county roads are even numbered according to this system, and the numbering convention ends at the Tipton county line.

[hotdogPi]

What grid?

[KCRoadFan]

What grid?

The idea of a street grid isn't really relevant in the Northeast (well, aside from NYC and Philly, that is). Anyway, I believe that along most highways in New England, whenever the addresses reset to zero or start going down when they had been going up - then you know you've crossed a town line.

I do know, however, that in some cases, the numbers don't reset at the town line - for example, the addresses on Beacon Street in Boston are continued into Brookline. I suppose that would be the closest equivalent in that part of the country, as far as what this post is trying to address (pun intended).

[SkyPesos]

Carmel, IN have its own street grid centered at Main St and Rangeline Rd, though Meridian St, and Old Meridian St, continues its addresses from its zero point in Indianapolis.

[webny99]

What grid?

The idea of a street grid isn't really relevant in the Northeast (well, aside from NYC and Philly, that is).

That's what I was thinking as well.

I'm not sure if my own area counts as having a "grid" or not. It's certainly not a true grid like the Midwest, but it does have some semblance of a grid, unlike New England.

[KCRoadFan]

What grid?

The idea of a street grid isn't really relevant in the Northeast (well, aside from NYC and Philly, that is).

That's what I was thinking as well.

I'm not sure if my own area counts as having a "grid" or not. It's certainly not a true grid like the Midwest, but it does have some semblance of a grid, unlike New England.

In this thread, by "grid" I don't necessarily mean that the shape of the roads has to be grid-like. If every address number within a given road system (e.g. the roads within a city, metro area, or county) is based off of its distance from, or location relative to, a common geographical origin or baseline of some sort (e.g. a central point or a county line), then for the purposes of this thread, it's a grid.

This is in contrast to most addresses in New England, as well as many places in other northeastern states such as NY, NJ, and PA, in which the house numbers on every street simply count up from zero (as is the norm in Europe). Those are not grids.

[Max Rockatansky]

Phoenix and Mesa.

[M3100]

Downtown Los Angeles has 1st Street running northwest - southeast, and, heading south, the numbers progress up from there.  It is not a perfect grid by any means, however the orientation switches to west-east south of downtown.

Several suburbs continue the series to the south, to some extent: Vernon, Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Compton, Lawndale, Torrance, Carson, Lomita, and Redondo Beach (barely).  The number series ends at 266th Street in the Harbor Pines area of Harbor City [which is a part of the city of Los Angeles].

Several of the major east-west arterial streets are names instead of numbers, with Century Blvd used in place of 100th Street.

[US 89]

In Utah, the concept of a "grid" is much more apparent than many other places since in most Utah cities, street names are simply their coordinate numbers in the grid system. In most counties, especially rural ones, the grid in the county seat or largest city is also used in unincorporated areas, and any other significant cities/towns will have a separate grid only within their city limits. Things can get interesting when a road runs along a municipal boundary, which often results in the same street having a different number depending on which side you look on. 

All of Salt Lake County now uses Salt Lake City's address grid, which has its origin downtown. However, there were historically a couple holdouts that continued to use their own, most notable of which was Midvale. Some evidence of the old independent grid still exists there in the form of Main Street, Center Street, and several numbered Avenues. Midvale finally changed over when they annexed the unincorporated Fort Union region in 1999, which was already on the Salt Lake County system. Copperton was another holdout especially given their relatively isolated location, but they have fully changed over within the last 10 years or so.

Weber County is entirely based on the Ogden grid. Davis County has several different grids, but neighboring cities there will often share one - such as Clearfield (also used by Syracuse, Clinton, Sunset, and West Point) or Bountiful (also used by West Bountiful and Woods Cross).

The real shitshow is Utah County, where neighboring cities generally do not share. The county has at least 18 different city grids plus a general county grid used in unincorporated areas and a handful of cities. I-15, for example, has interchanges with five Main Streets and two Center Streets in a span of about 35 miles. To make matters even more complicated, the Utah County grid is almost exactly the same as Provo's...but its origin is at a section line intersection about a block and a quarter southeast of the Provo city center. As you might imagine, this makes emergency services and general navigation rather difficult.

The section line thing also makes things messy in Duchesne and western Uintah Counties in particular. Roosevelt is the largest city in the western Uinta Basin, so it makes sense that it should be the origin for nearby rural areas...except the unincorporated grid has a 2 block offset from the city grid in the NS direction. The city's grid originates from State Street and Lagoon Street, but the county's is from State and an east-west section line road called "Cove Road" in some areas...but is far better known as 200 North since that's its name in Roosevelt.

[Bruce]

King County, WA uses a grid that is just an extension of Seattle's least-messy grid (out of three platted by the pioneers), but a few cities have their own grids and numbering systems that pre-date the countywide normalization in the 1960s/1970s. My favorite is Kirkland, which has a whole skewed grid in downtown (allegedly to make the most of the area's views) and also flips around its suffixes, with north-south streets and east-west avenues. Since this only applies to the city before its annexations, there are neighborhoods where streets will flip from Avenue to Street without changing directions.

[webny99]

Phoenix and Mesa.

... have separate grids, the same grid, or a mix of both?

[sparker]

My hometown of Glendale, CA had a unusual grid system:  most of the central/downtown area was oriented abjectly N-S and E-W -- except the western border with L.A., which follows the UP (originally SP) RR tracks, themselves largely traced by San Fernando Road, which generally ran SSE-NNW, but was more pronounced NW the farther north it ran.  But being in a valley surrounded mostly by hills, the grid pattern fell apart the closer one got the hills, and deterioriated once up in them.  But the northwest corner of the city was laid out diagonally, using neighboring Burbank's grid, which employed San Fernando Road as one axis.  The street on which I lived, Grandview, was the dividing line between the grid patterns and traced a line between them more on a left-bias angle than central Glendale but not as pronounced as the Burbank grid.  One oddity:  while Glendale numbering was based on an axis emanating from the corner of Broadway (E-W) and Brand Boulevard, the main original commercial street (N-S), with blocks starting with "100" rather than "0" (as per L.A. practice), San Fernando Road retained its L.A.-based numbering that started at North Main St. in Lincoln Heights; it was well into the 4000's before entering Glendale.  Curiously, once it entered Burbank from Glendale it utilized Burbank's numbering system until it exited into Sun Valley, where it resumed the L.A. convention.

[Max Rockatansky]

Phoenix and Mesa.

... have separate grids, the same grid, or a mix of both?

Separate and I forgot Tempe was part of it as well.  Phoenix has a number based grid where's Tempe and Mesa do not.  I would argue Phoenix and Mesa have more of a twin city (or had) relationship than suburbs also.  In the case of Mesa I find the lack of a numbered grid odd given that was a really big thing with most Mormon settlements. 

[SEWIGuy]

Many parts of Waukesha County have addresses based on the Milwaukee County grid system, but then a number of municipalities have their own.

https://www.cbs58.com/news/glad-you-asked-whats-up-with-those-long-addresses

(They are wrong about Wisconsin Avenue being the baseline though.  Wisconsin Avenue is 7 blocks north.)

For instance, when I was younger I lived in the Town of Genesse and my address was S29W29484.  So I was 29 blocks south of the baseline and 294 blocks west of the Milwaukee River in downtown Milwaukee.

[GaryV]

Grand Rapids has 2 different street grids in the downtown area of the city.  Some of it has been straightened out over the years.  But there are still streets at about a 45 degree angle in the area between Pearl and Fulton.  As I understand it, there was a rivalry between the founders of 2 settlements that eventually became Grand Rapids, and they deliberately laid out their streets to not match up.

As far as address numbers, both areas follow the same system.

[ztonyg]

Phoenix and Mesa.

... have separate grids, the same grid, or a mix of both?

Separate and I forgot Tempe was part of it as well.  Phoenix has a number based grid where's Tempe and Mesa do not.  I would argue Phoenix and Mesa have more of a twin city (or had) relationship than suburbs also.  In the case of Mesa I find the lack of a numbered grid odd given that was a really big thing with most Mormon settlements.

Most of the major cities in the Phoenix area use the Phoenix grid (including Avondale, Buckeye, Glendale, Peoria, Scottsdale, and Surprise). The exception is seems to be in the East Valley (Apache Junction, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, and Tempe) where each of those cities seems to use its own grid.

What's interesting (at least to me) is that the Valley Metro transit system numbers all of its local bus routes off of the Phoenix grid including the routes in the East Valley (with the exception of route 8 due to the fact that route 7 is already used for the 7th St route). Simply add 00 to whatever bus route number is there is the street number,

[kphoger]

Some areas of suburban DuPage County have an address system that's based on that of Chicago but distinct from it.  For example, in Warrenville...

Dunkin Donuts has an address of 28W125 Warrenville Rd.  The "28W" part means 28 miles west of Chicago's State St.  A couple of blocks away, the historical society museum has an address of 3S530 2nd St.  The "3S" part means 3 miles south of Chicago's Madison St, if it were somehow extended straight west all the way into the suburbs.

However, that address system coexists with another, entirely numerical system.  Go just a half-mile away, and the orthopedic clinic has an address of 27650 Ferry Rd.

This leads to some interesting phenomena–like 3S555 Winfield Rd (a bank) being less than a mile away from 4201 Winfield Rd (a corporate office) in the same town.  And also Google Maps getting a bit confused about house numbers (see below).

[DandyDan]

In the Omaha area, downtown Bellevue has its own grid, but much of the city, basically all of it west of Fort Crook Road, is based on Omaha. Papillion has its own grid, but 72nd and 96th Street extend south from Omaha. LaVista and Ralston borrow Omaha's grid.

[CapeCodder]

St. Louis has a pretty tight grid that extends into the innermost suburbs in some places. Clayton has its own grid.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

In the Twin Cities, Hennepin, Dakota, and Anoka Counties all run off a semi-coordinated grid. Ramsey County, though, does its entirely own thing other than University Avenue.

[hobsini2]

Some areas of suburban DuPage County have an address system that's based on that of Chicago but distinct from it.  For example, in Warrenville...

Dunkin Donuts has an address of 28W125 Warrenville Rd.  The "28W" part means 28 miles west of Chicago's State St.  A couple of blocks away, the historical society museum has an address of 3S530 2nd St.  The "3S" part means 3 miles south of Chicago's Madison St, if it were somehow extended straight west all the way into the suburbs.

However, that address system coexists with another, entirely numerical system.  Go just a half-mile away, and the orthopedic clinic has an address of 27650 Ferry Rd.

This leads to some interesting phenomena–like 3S555 Winfield Rd (a bank) being less than a mile away from 4201 Winfield Rd (a corporate office) in the same town.  And also Google Maps getting a bit confused about house numbers (see below).

The xDIRECTIONxxx addresses I always associated with them being old, unincorporated parts of a suburb. Naperville has a few of these still. I have a client whose Naperville address is 25Wxxx Mayflower Ave even though it is well within Naperville's city limit now.
And these are not just in DuPage County but also in Kane, Will, Lake, Cook, Kendall, McHenry and DeKalb to my personal knowledge. Kankakee, La Salle and Bureau may even have them.

And there are some suburbs who have their own "grid". My hometown of Bolingbrook does where the dividing lines are Route 53 and Briarcliff Rd.

[Rick Powell]

Some areas of suburban DuPage County have an address system that's based on that of Chicago but distinct from it. 

Cook County's south suburbs have some anomalies. 211th Street is also known as 14th Street in Chicago Heights, and Park Forest's curvilinear streets bear no relationship to the rest of the grid except for Western Avenue. In South Holland, the streets skip 3 blocks; for example 159th Street in Harvey (which is consistent with the Chicago grid) becomes 162nd Street as soon as it hits the border. And the north-south street 5 miles west of State Street alternately changes names from Crawford Ave. to Pulaski Ave. depending on where you are at. Oddly enough, the Chicago grid perpetuates itself deep into eastern Will County, far from the urban grid, where gravel or blacktop farm roads like Cottage Grove, Yates and Ashland Avenues perpetuate their names and what would be their Chicago grid addresses.

[hobsini2]

Some areas of suburban DuPage County have an address system that's based on that of Chicago but distinct from it. 

Cook County's south suburbs have some anomalies. 211th Street is also known as 14th Street in Chicago Heights, and Park Forest's curvilinear streets bear no relationship to the rest of the grid except for Western Avenue. In South Holland, the streets skip 3 blocks; for example 159th Street in Harvey (which is consistent with the Chicago grid) becomes 162nd Street as soon as it hits the border. And the north-south street 5 miles west of State Street alternately changes names from Crawford Ave. to Pulaski Ave. depending on where you are at. Oddly enough, the Chicago grid perpetuates itself deep into eastern Will County, far from the urban grid, where gravel or blacktop farm roads like Cottage Grove, Yates and Ashland Avenues perpetuate their names and what would be their Chicago grid addresses.

I have even taken Harlem Ave all the way to Peotone.

[cpzilliacus]

The two counties that border the District of Columbia simply continue the address system in D.C. well into Maryland.  Prince George's County has numbered streets that to some extent continue the D.C. numbered streets well to the east of the city.  Montgomery County has a few numbered streets that continue the D.C. numbered streets, but not as many as its neighbor.

Within Montgomery County, the municipality of Rockville uses a street grid that is independent of the county/D.C. grid, with its own address numbering scheme.  For roads that pass through Rockville (such as MD-355), the county numbering for street addresses resumes on either side of Rockville.