City road networks grow like biological systems

I live in a locale where addresses such as N88W26766 Off The Beaten Path or S22W18887 Nowheresville Lane are used by many municipalities in the greater Milwaukee metro area. Even though many Milwaukee city residents would consider such places "out in the country" all are relative to the numbered grid for the Milwaukee street system. The nice thing about these seemingly unwieldy addresses is that, when you understand them you can always find the particular residence or business you are seeking simply by looking at an address near where you are, and a second as you travel on, even if you don't know the name of the road you are on, be it straight or angled or curvy.

Within the city itself addr...

I live in a locale where addresses such as N88W26766 Off The Beaten Path or S22W18887 Nowheresville Lane are used by many municipalities in the greater Milwaukee metro area. Even though many Milwaukee city residents would consider such places "out in the country" all are relative to the numbered grid for the Milwaukee street system. The nice thing about these seemingly unwieldy addresses is that, when you understand them you can always find the particular residence or business you are seeking simply by looking at an address near where you are, and a second as you travel on, even if you don't know the name of the road you are on, be it straight or angled or curvy.

Within the city itself addresses such as 4832 West Bruce Street or 3544 North 59th Street, 3544 South 59th Street are employed. The problem with 4832 West Bruce Street is that one has no idea how far north or south within the city Bruce Street might be.

The numbered streets are a bit easier, of course, particularly since there is no numbered street in an eastern quadrant due to Lake Michigan. Most everything, but not all, is west and there are no East #'ed streets. That South 59th Street address would actually be W59S3544 in the "rural" system above and anyone could find it easily, if they understood the system.