WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.120 You know, I had a moment this morning while I 00:00:02.120 --> 00:00:03.759 was waiting for the light to change. I was just 00:00:03.759 --> 00:00:06.639 scaring up at that green metal rectangle on the 00:00:06.639 --> 00:00:09.919 corner, reading the name. It's something I've 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.300 probably looked at a thousand times, typed into 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:15.060 my GPS, written on envelopes, but I realized 00:00:15.060 --> 00:00:17.719 I've never actually read it. It occurred to me 00:00:17.719 --> 00:00:20.600 that we are constantly navigating through this 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:24.100 web of words that we just, we just accept as 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:26.690 fact. It is the ultimate background noise of 00:00:26.690 --> 00:00:28.969 civilization, isn't it? Yeah. We treat street 00:00:28.969 --> 00:00:32.030 names purely as functional tools, data points 00:00:32.030 --> 00:00:34.630 to get us from point A to point B. We don't usually 00:00:34.630 --> 00:00:37.270 stop and ask, you know, why is point A called 00:00:37.270 --> 00:00:40.210 what it is? Exactly. But looking at the stack 00:00:40.210 --> 00:00:43.159 of research we have for today. Functional is 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:44.780 probably the last word I would use to describe 00:00:44.780 --> 00:00:47.399 them. These names are messy. They're deeply political. 00:00:47.539 --> 00:00:49.759 And honestly, some of them are just bizarre. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.439 It turns out that a street map isn't just about 00:00:52.439 --> 00:00:55.200 geography. No, it's a historical document. It's 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:57.880 a political manifesto. Sometimes it's a psychological 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:00.240 profile of the city planners who died 200 years 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:03.280 ago. That is exactly what we are unpacking today. 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:06.439 We are going deep into the science and the drama 00:01:06.439 --> 00:01:09.459 of street naming. We've got a massive stack of 00:01:09.459 --> 00:01:11.840 articles, historical records, and urban planning 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:14.340 notes here. And our mission really is to decode 00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:16.620 the hidden language of the city. Right. And to 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:18.819 start, we should probably dignify the topic with 00:01:18.819 --> 00:01:21.019 its proper technical name. We aren't just talking 00:01:21.019 --> 00:01:23.939 about street signs. This field of study is called 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:27.280 odonomy. Odonomy. It sounds a bit like a medical 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:28.579 condition you don't want to tell your doctor 00:01:28.579 --> 00:01:30.560 about. It does, doesn't it? It comes from the 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:34.280 ancient Greek, hodos meaning road, and anoma 00:01:34.280 --> 00:01:37.180 meaning name. So quite literally, road naming. 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:39.719 And while it sounds academic, it's actually one 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:42.400 of the most accessible forms of archaeology we 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:44.579 have. You don't need a shovel. You just need 00:01:44.579 --> 00:01:46.420 to look up. So let's break down the anatomy of 00:01:46.420 --> 00:01:48.280 these things first. Because on the surface, it 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:50.019 seems simple. You have a name and you have a 00:01:50.019 --> 00:01:52.879 type, main and street. But the notes here suggest 00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:55.120 that even that basic structure is full of traps. 00:01:55.579 --> 00:01:57.319 It's full of marketing, actually. We break it 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:00.120 down into two parts. The specific, that's the 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:03.280 unique identifier like Maine or Broadway, and 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:05.879 the generic, which is the classification, like 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:10.379 street, avenue, or lane. The problem is the generic 00:02:10.379 --> 00:02:12.960 is often a total fabrication. A fabrication? 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:15.479 You mean like fake news on a pole? In a way. 00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:17.900 Especially in the 19th century, and even more 00:02:17.900 --> 00:02:20.840 so today in real estate, developers use the generic 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:24.259 to manipulate perception. If you call a street 00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:28.389 park avenue, You are evoking wealth, greenery, 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:31.330 status. Even if there's no park. It doesn't matter 00:02:31.330 --> 00:02:33.710 if there isn't a single tree in sight and it's 00:02:33.710 --> 00:02:36.110 just a strip of concrete. It's branding. You 00:02:36.110 --> 00:02:38.050 see Manor Lane on a map and you picture this 00:02:38.050 --> 00:02:40.669 winding country route with a hedge, not a cul 00:02:40.669 --> 00:02:43.389 -de -sac behind a big box store. Precisely. It 00:02:43.389 --> 00:02:45.430 sets a price point before you even see the house. 00:02:45.849 --> 00:02:47.770 And historically, the grammar of these things 00:02:47.770 --> 00:02:49.669 used to be different too. If you look at British 00:02:49.669 --> 00:02:51.949 maps in the 1800s, you see this fascinating habit 00:02:51.949 --> 00:02:55.379 of hyphenating. It wasn't Broad street is two 00:02:55.379 --> 00:02:57.979 words. It was broad hyphen street, lower cases. 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.500 That feels so alien to read now. Broad street. 00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:04.620 It turns the whole thing into a single compound 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:07.259 noun. Yeah, it changes the rhythm of how you 00:03:07.259 --> 00:03:10.099 say it. It shows how language evolves on the 00:03:10.099 --> 00:03:12.460 landscape. But if we want to get into the real 00:03:12.460 --> 00:03:15.060 stories, we have to look at the specifics. This 00:03:15.060 --> 00:03:17.219 is where we find what I like to call the ghosts 00:03:17.219 --> 00:03:19.659 of history. This was my favorite part of the 00:03:19.659 --> 00:03:22.300 reading. The idea that a name can preserve a 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:25.800 sensory experience from 500 years ago. We aren't 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:28.219 just commemorating famous people. We're labeling 00:03:28.219 --> 00:03:31.219 what used to happen on that specific patch of 00:03:31.219 --> 00:03:34.379 dirt. Exactly. In the modern world, we name streets 00:03:34.379 --> 00:03:37.580 after politicians or trees. But in the medieval 00:03:37.580 --> 00:03:40.620 world, naming was purely functional. It told 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:42.500 you what you would find there. It was a warning 00:03:42.500 --> 00:03:45.430 or an advertisement or a direction. The commerce 00:03:45.430 --> 00:03:47.509 and industry category is great for this. You 00:03:47.509 --> 00:03:49.930 have Haymarket in London. You don't need a degree 00:03:49.930 --> 00:03:51.629 to figure out what they were selling there. Right. 00:03:51.669 --> 00:03:56.129 Or Cannery Row in Monterey. It's literal. But 00:03:56.129 --> 00:03:58.150 my favorite example, and one that really highlights 00:03:58.150 --> 00:04:01.250 how language drifts, is the shambles. You see 00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.509 this street name in York and other Old English 00:04:03.509 --> 00:04:05.909 cities? See, when I use the word shambles today, 00:04:06.110 --> 00:04:09.849 I mean a disaster. Like, my kitchen is a shambles 00:04:09.849 --> 00:04:12.370 after making dinner. And that definition is a 00:04:12.370 --> 00:04:15.300 direct result of the street name. Originally, 00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:17.459 the word comes from the Anglo -Saxon term, which 00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:21.180 meant meat shelves. Meat shelves. Okay, that 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:23.660 took a turn. The shambles was the butcher's district. 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:26.639 These were the streets where raw meat was displayed 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:28.600 on open shelves, you know, directly onto the 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:31.199 street. So the shambles were the stalls themselves. 00:04:31.699 --> 00:04:33.779 Oh, wow. And eventually, because of the blood, 00:04:33.839 --> 00:04:36.100 the guts, the chaos of a slaughterhouse district, 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:39.620 the word shambles just morphed into meaning... 00:04:39.790 --> 00:04:42.410 A complete mess. What creates a very vivid and 00:04:42.410 --> 00:04:45.250 slightly gross picture. You walk down a quaint 00:04:45.250 --> 00:04:48.250 cobblestone tourist street in York today, but 00:04:48.250 --> 00:04:50.509 the name is basically screaming Slaughterhouse 00:04:50.509 --> 00:04:53.769 Avenue. It's a sensory fossil. And you see it 00:04:53.769 --> 00:04:56.170 everywhere once you start translating. Smith 00:04:56.170 --> 00:04:59.670 Street or La Rue des Forges. That's the sound 00:04:59.670 --> 00:05:01.790 of the hammer on the anvil. These are functional 00:05:01.790 --> 00:05:03.910 maps of a lost economy. But then you have the 00:05:03.910 --> 00:05:06.120 ghosts that are a bit more literal. The names 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:08.279 that commemorate things that were destroyed to 00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:11.079 make room for the street itself. The landmarks 00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:14.420 that vanished. This is where autonomy gets a 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.279 bit grim. We have a habit of naming the grave 00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:19.579 after the victim. Wall Street is the big one 00:05:19.579 --> 00:05:21.879 here, right? The classic example. It's a metonym 00:05:21.879 --> 00:05:24.540 for global finance now. But originally, there 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:26.639 was a literal wooden wall there to protect the 00:05:26.639 --> 00:05:29.699 Dutch settlers. The wall is long gone, but the 00:05:29.699 --> 00:05:32.199 name freezes that defensive perimeter in time. 00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:34.680 And Canal Street in New York, there used to be 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:37.000 a canal there. They filled it in and paved over 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:39.439 it because it became a sewer. Right. But I found 00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:41.319 the New Orleans counterexample really funny. 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:43.860 Me too. New Orleans is great because it breaks 00:05:43.860 --> 00:05:46.139 the rule. They have a canal street too. But there 00:05:46.139 --> 00:05:48.480 was never a canal there. It's a ghost of a ghost. 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:52.180 Essentially. The city reserved a massive right 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:54.180 -of -way for a canal that they planned to dig. 00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:57.279 They never dug it. But the name Canal Street 00:05:57.279 --> 00:06:00.019 stuck. So in New York, you're driving on a grave. 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:02.379 In New Orleans, you're driving on a broken promise. 00:06:02.620 --> 00:06:05.180 That seems very on brand for urban planning. 00:06:05.740 --> 00:06:07.660 And speaking of New Orleans, we have to touch 00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:10.720 on the misconceptions. Bourbon Street. Ah, yes. 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:13.060 The assumption everyone makes. You go there, 00:06:13.100 --> 00:06:15.060 you drink a cocktail, you assume the street is 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:16.759 named after the whiskey because that's what is 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:19.199 happening all around you. It fits the vibe perfectly. 00:06:19.360 --> 00:06:22.439 It's the party street. It does. But the timeline 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:26.399 is all wrong. The street was named in 1721. It's 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:28.360 named after the House of Bourbon. The French 00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:31.220 Royal Dynasty. No way. Just like Burgundy Street 00:06:31.220 --> 00:06:33.899 isn't named after the wine, but the House of 00:06:33.899 --> 00:06:36.439 Burgundy. So you have thousands of tourists stumbling 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:38.379 around on Royal Dynasty Street thinking they 00:06:38.379 --> 00:06:40.959 are on Whiskey Road. It's a beautiful example 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:44.240 of how the current use of a street overwrites 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.860 its original meaning in our minds. We project 00:06:46.860 --> 00:06:49.560 our own context onto the sign. So we've talked 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.680 about the organic, messy history, the butchers, 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:56.269 the walls, the kings. But at some point, cities 00:06:56.269 --> 00:06:58.550 stopped growing organically and started being 00:06:58.550 --> 00:07:00.910 designed. And that's where we get the grids. 00:07:01.029 --> 00:07:04.649 The shift from chaos to order. The grid is really 00:07:04.649 --> 00:07:07.350 an attempt to impose logic on the landscape. 00:07:07.569 --> 00:07:10.170 And in the U .S., that logic is almost aggressively 00:07:10.170 --> 00:07:14.069 numerical. It's utilitarian. But I saw a stat 00:07:14.069 --> 00:07:16.569 in the notes that confused me. The most common 00:07:16.569 --> 00:07:19.410 street name in the U .S. isn't First Street. 00:07:19.670 --> 00:07:23.040 It's Second Street. Over 10 ,000 of them. Which 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:25.600 bothers me deeply. Where did all the First Streets 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:28.379 go? They got promoted. First Street is usually 00:07:28.379 --> 00:07:30.199 the most important thoroughfare. It's the starting 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:33.660 line. So over time, it gets renamed to Main Street, 00:07:33.860 --> 00:07:37.100 or Commerce Street, or Front Street if it's by 00:07:37.100 --> 00:07:39.720 the water, or it gets renamed after a local hero. 00:07:40.199 --> 00:07:42.660 Second Street is important enough to keep its 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:44.959 number, but not important enough to get a fancy 00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:47.939 name. So Second Street is the survivor. First 00:07:47.939 --> 00:07:49.959 street sold out for the branding opportunities. 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:52.899 Exactly. But if you want to see a grid that really 00:07:52.899 --> 00:07:55.120 tries to be a computer code, you have to look 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:57.540 at Washington, D .C. D .C. feels like a puzzle. 00:07:57.660 --> 00:07:59.600 When you visit, you notice the letters, but then 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:01.420 the letters stop. It's an expanding algorithm. 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:04.139 The architects, L 'Enfant and Ellicott, designed 00:08:04.139 --> 00:08:06.600 it to grow. You start with lettered street A, 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:09.720 B, C. When you run out of letters, you move to 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:12.000 two -syllable names. When you run out of those, 00:08:12.199 --> 00:08:14.600 three -syllable names. Then flowers and shrubs, 00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:17.509 right. Then you move to names of flowers and 00:08:17.509 --> 00:08:20.050 shrubs. So if you're standing on Amarillo Street, 00:08:20.269 --> 00:08:22.709 you know instantly that you are deep in the suburbs. 00:08:22.889 --> 00:08:24.829 You know exactly how far from the center you 00:08:24.829 --> 00:08:27.029 are just by the syllable count. But D .C. has 00:08:27.029 --> 00:08:30.269 that famous glitch, the missing J. Right. There 00:08:30.269 --> 00:08:32.610 is no J Street. And I've heard urban legends 00:08:32.610 --> 00:08:35.590 about this, that the planner held a grudge against 00:08:35.590 --> 00:08:39.090 someone named J or John J. It's much more practical 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:42.080 and honestly a bit more boring. In 18th century 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:45.039 typography and handwriting, the letters I and 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:47.759 J were often. They all look the same. Exactly. 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:49.820 They're basically interchangeable. The planners 00:08:49.820 --> 00:08:52.100 were worried that I Street and J Street would 00:08:52.100 --> 00:08:55.179 be confused on maps and mail. So they just deleted 00:08:55.179 --> 00:08:58.000 J. It's a typo prevention strategy that became 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:00.360 permanent geography. Imagine being the letter 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:02.519 J and just getting canceled by a city. And then 00:09:02.519 --> 00:09:04.789 you look at Salt Lake City. And the grid becomes 00:09:04.789 --> 00:09:07.149 theological. This is the coordinate system, right? 00:09:07.269 --> 00:09:10.529 The addresses look like math equations. 4570 00:09:10.529 --> 00:09:14.830 South 4000 West. It is a math equation. The entire 00:09:14.830 --> 00:09:17.990 city is plotted on a grid centered on the LDS 00:09:17.990 --> 00:09:21.409 temple. That address tells you that you are exactly 00:09:21.409 --> 00:09:24.850 45 blocks south and 40 blocks west of the temple. 00:09:24.929 --> 00:09:26.870 It literally places the church at the center 00:09:26.870 --> 00:09:28.990 of your existence. It does. It's brilliant for 00:09:28.990 --> 00:09:33.039 navigation, but it lacks a certain... Meet Me 00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:35.779 at 400 South doesn't have the same ring as Meet 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:37.940 Me at the Corner of Spruce and Walnut. Which 00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:40.620 brings us to themes. When planners get tired 00:09:40.620 --> 00:09:42.840 of numbers, they turn to themes to create an 00:09:42.840 --> 00:09:45.299 identity. Philadelphia was the pioneer here. 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:48.120 William Penn laid out the city with tree names. 00:09:48.419 --> 00:09:52.299 Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine. Which every suburb 00:09:52.299 --> 00:09:54.960 in America has copied since. Totally. It projects 00:09:54.960 --> 00:09:57.669 a specific image. Natural, sturdy, everlasting. 00:09:58.110 --> 00:10:00.309 Yeah. But you see much more niche themes, too. 00:10:00.730 --> 00:10:03.210 Gander, Newfoundland, is famous for its aviation 00:10:03.210 --> 00:10:05.250 history, so every single street is named after 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:07.889 a pilot. Or the Welsh streets in Liverpool. Ringo 00:10:07.889 --> 00:10:09.950 Starr grew up there. It creates a microculture. 00:10:10.129 --> 00:10:12.230 It does. But my favorite anomaly in the grid 00:10:12.230 --> 00:10:14.960 world has to be Tucson, Arizona. They have streets, 00:10:15.159 --> 00:10:17.320 they have avenues, and then they have stravenues. 00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:20.320 Stravenues? I assumed that was a typo in the 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:23.379 notes. It is a real postal -recognized designation. 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:26.299 It's for diagonal roads that cut across the grid. 00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:28.960 It's a portmanteau of street and avenue. I want 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:31.179 to live on a stravenue. It sounds like you're 00:10:31.179 --> 00:10:33.580 living in the future. It shows that even within 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:38.500 rigid systems, local quirks emerge. But, and 00:10:38.500 --> 00:10:40.779 this is the heavy pivot, controlling the names 00:10:40.779 --> 00:10:43.399 on the map isn't just about navigation or whimsy. 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:46.899 It is about power. This is the politics of renaming. 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:48.940 And I think this is the part of the deep dive 00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:51.080 that really hits home. Because when a government 00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:54.500 falls or a movement rises, the street signs are 00:10:54.500 --> 00:10:56.519 usually the first thing to change. Absolutely. 00:10:56.559 --> 00:10:59.220 It is the cheapest and most visible way to signal 00:10:59.220 --> 00:11:01.799 a regime change. You are literally rewriting 00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:04.019 the landscape. If you control the street names, 00:11:04.159 --> 00:11:06.289 you control the public memory. We saw this play 00:11:06.289 --> 00:11:09.710 out in real time in Zimbabwe. Yes. After independence 00:11:09.710 --> 00:11:11.970 in 1980, there was a massive purge of colonial 00:11:11.970 --> 00:11:14.730 names. Roads named after British generals and 00:11:14.730 --> 00:11:17.330 royalty became roads named after Zimbabwean nationalist 00:11:17.330 --> 00:11:20.409 leaders. It's a way of saying this land is ours 00:11:20.409 --> 00:11:23.529 now. And it happens everywhere. Ukraine in 2014 00:11:23.529 --> 00:11:26.330 is a huge example. The decommunization laws. 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:29.629 They stripped away Soviet names. There was a 00:11:29.629 --> 00:11:33.279 street in Kiev named after Patrice Lumumba. a 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:35.860 Congolese independence leader, but one heavily 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:39.000 supported by the USSR. They renamed it after 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.779 Pope John Paul II. Wow. I mean, think about the 00:11:41.779 --> 00:11:44.159 ideological shift there, from African Marxism 00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:47.580 to Polish Catholicism in one sign change. It's 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:50.759 dizzying. And in Romania, after 1989, you saw 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:52.980 the same thing. But the data there was interesting. 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:55.159 It wasn't uniform. No, and that's the nuance. 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:57.720 In Bucharest, only about 6 % of streets were 00:11:57.720 --> 00:12:00.220 renamed. But in Tamiyawara, where the revolution 00:12:00.220 --> 00:12:03.600 started, it was 26%. The intensity of the renaming 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:05.740 reflected the intensity of the struggle in that 00:12:05.740 --> 00:12:07.919 city. It's not just about politics, though. Sometimes 00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:10.299 it's about trauma. Erasing a name because it 00:12:10.299 --> 00:12:12.299 hurts to say it. The Malbone Street example in 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:14.580 Brooklyn is chilling. In 1918, there was a horrific 00:12:14.580 --> 00:12:17.360 train crash. The Malbone Street wreck. Nearly 00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.019 100 people died. The name became synonymous with 00:12:20.019 --> 00:12:21.820 death. You couldn't sell a house on Malbone Street. 00:12:22.019 --> 00:12:24.139 So they rebranded. They changed it to Empire 00:12:24.139 --> 00:12:28.070 Boulevard. It sounds grand, triumphant. It washes 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:30.549 away the blood. We see that with Hamburg Avenue 00:12:30.549 --> 00:12:32.990 becoming Wilson Avenue during World War I. We 00:12:32.990 --> 00:12:34.610 didn't want to be reminded of the enemy. But 00:12:34.610 --> 00:12:37.129 sometimes the renaming's an apology. Look at 00:12:37.129 --> 00:12:40.110 Wong Wei in Riverside, California. Wong Wei. 00:12:40.830 --> 00:12:44.389 That feels uncomfortable. It sounds like a bad 00:12:44.389 --> 00:12:47.929 pun. It was almost certainly a slur, or at least 00:12:47.929 --> 00:12:50.289 highly insensitive, marking the Chinatown area. 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:53.299 Years later... The city realized the implication. 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:56.320 They renamed it Wong Street, and they added the 00:12:56.320 --> 00:12:59.620 Chinese characters to the sign. It turned a mockery 00:12:59.620 --> 00:13:02.039 into a mark of respect. That brings up the dead 00:13:02.039 --> 00:13:04.059 person rule, because naming something after a 00:13:04.059 --> 00:13:07.220 person is risky. We love to hero worship, but 00:13:07.220 --> 00:13:10.000 heroes are human. They can disappoint us. That 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:12.179 is why most cities have a mandatory waiting period. 00:13:12.399 --> 00:13:15.629 The general rule is... Don't name a street after 00:13:15.629 --> 00:13:17.809 someone until they are safely dead and can't 00:13:17.809 --> 00:13:19.809 embarrass you. San Francisco learned this the 00:13:19.809 --> 00:13:22.289 hard way with Lech Washer. They did. They named 00:13:22.289 --> 00:13:23.970 a street after the Polish leader when he was 00:13:23.970 --> 00:13:26.269 a global hero, Nobel Prize winner, everything. 00:13:26.850 --> 00:13:29.330 Then, years later, he made some very public, 00:13:29.409 --> 00:13:32.549 very anti -gay remarks. For a city like San Francisco, 00:13:32.750 --> 00:13:34.769 that was a deal breaker. So they had to unname 00:13:34.769 --> 00:13:38.149 it. They renamed it Dr. Tom Waddle Place in 2014. 00:13:38.899 --> 00:13:41.600 It's embarrassing for a SETI to backtrack. It's 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:43.679 why you rarely see streets named after living 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:46.759 presidents. The risk is just too high. Except 00:13:46.759 --> 00:13:49.559 for poets, apparently. Well, yes. San Francisco 00:13:49.559 --> 00:13:51.580 did break their own rule for the poet Lawrence 00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:53.960 Ferlinghetti. They named an alley after him while 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:56.639 he was still alive. Poets are generally safer 00:13:56.639 --> 00:13:59.580 bets than politicians. There is one more layer 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:01.779 to this power struggle, and that's language itself. 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:04.320 Not just who the street is named after, but what 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:07.100 language the sign is in. Language on signs is 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:09.970 a flag planting. Look at Brussels. It's a bilingual 00:14:09.970 --> 00:14:12.970 city. French and Dutch. Every street has two 00:14:12.970 --> 00:14:15.610 names. But they aren't always translations. Sometimes 00:14:15.610 --> 00:14:18.230 they are arguments. How so? Well, sometimes it's 00:14:18.230 --> 00:14:20.750 literal. Bergstraat becomes Rue de la Montaigne. 00:14:20.970 --> 00:14:23.730 Mountain Street. Simple. But look at the boulevard 00:14:23.730 --> 00:14:26.590 named after Charlemagne. In French, it's Boulevard 00:14:26.590 --> 00:14:29.279 Charlemagne. In Dutch, it used to be Carla Mengellen. 00:14:29.379 --> 00:14:31.679 Oh. But they changed it to Carol de Grotel and 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:34.519 Charles the Great. That seems subtle. It's incredibly 00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:37.460 pointed. They are rejecting the French version 00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:39.860 of the name and asserting the Dutch cultural 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:42.980 ownership of the historical figure. It's a linguistic 00:14:42.980 --> 00:14:45.779 tug -of -war played out on metal poles. You see 00:14:45.779 --> 00:14:48.620 that in Quebec, too. The gallicization of the 00:14:48.620 --> 00:14:51.460 streets. Lakeshore Road wasn't French enough. 00:14:51.559 --> 00:14:54.679 It became Chemin Lakeshore. But even that was 00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:57.100 too franglais. The pressure was to change it 00:14:57.100 --> 00:14:59.679 to Chemin du Bordulac. It's about telling the 00:14:59.679 --> 00:15:02.279 resident, you are in French territory now. It's 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:04.940 fascinating. We think of street names as permanent, 00:15:05.059 --> 00:15:07.159 but they are actually incredibly fluid. Which 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:09.080 leads us to the places where the system breaks 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:12.620 down completely. The anomalies. I love this section. 00:15:12.820 --> 00:15:15.399 Because for all our grids in politics, sometimes 00:15:15.399 --> 00:15:18.139 the world just refuses to be labeled. There are 00:15:18.139 --> 00:15:21.080 places with no names. There are. In the Netherlands, 00:15:21.259 --> 00:15:23.879 there is a district called Grand Voorwisch. They 00:15:23.879 --> 00:15:25.559 decided street names were unnecessary. They just 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:27.879 have house numbers. Just numbers. But they start 00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:32.139 at 13 ,000. So your address is just 13 ,005 Grand 00:15:32.139 --> 00:15:34.500 Voorwisch. That sounds like living in a giant 00:15:34.500 --> 00:15:37.120 filing cabinet. It's so impersonal. Contrast 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:40.159 that with Costa Rica. For a long time, and still 00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:42.500 in many places, streets didn't have names at 00:15:42.500 --> 00:15:45.019 all. Directions are entirely relational. This 00:15:45.019 --> 00:15:47.740 is the turn left at the big mango tree system. 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:51.129 Literally. An official address might be from 00:15:51.129 --> 00:15:54.110 the old church, 100 meters south, house with 00:15:54.110 --> 00:15:55.809 the blue gate. Well, what happens if they paint 00:15:55.809 --> 00:15:59.110 the gate red or cut down the tree? Then you get 00:15:59.110 --> 00:16:02.029 lost. But notice the unit of measurement. They 00:16:02.029 --> 00:16:04.090 say 100 meters, but they really mean one block. 00:16:04.730 --> 00:16:06.809 It doesn't matter if the block is 50 meters or 00:16:06.809 --> 00:16:09.110 200 meters long. 100 meters is just slang for 00:16:09.110 --> 00:16:12.110 next corner. It forces you to interact with people. 00:16:12.250 --> 00:16:14.110 You can't just follow a blue dot on a screen. 00:16:14.149 --> 00:16:16.250 You have to ask a local where the old church 00:16:16.250 --> 00:16:19.080 used to be. It creates a high -context society. 00:16:19.399 --> 00:16:21.379 You have to know the history to find your way 00:16:21.379 --> 00:16:24.120 home. On the flip side of no names, you have 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:26.259 the cities that have too many of the same name. 00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:29.440 Atlanta. I'm looking at you. The Peachtree problem. 00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:32.440 It's a comedy of errors. Peachtree Street, Peachtree 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:35.580 Drive, Peachtree Plaza, Peachtree Circle. Peachtree 00:16:35.580 --> 00:16:37.980 Way, Peachtree Walk, West Peachtree. There are 00:16:37.980 --> 00:16:40.740 dozens of them. It defeats the entire purpose 00:16:40.740 --> 00:16:43.179 of a name, which is to be a unique identifier. 00:16:43.639 --> 00:16:46.340 If you tell someone, meet me on Peachtree. You 00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:49.379 might never see them again. It's chaos. Philadelphia 00:16:49.379 --> 00:16:51.960 has a similar issue on the main line with Gulf 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:55.799 Road. You have Upper Gulf, Lower Gulf, Old Gulf, 00:16:55.960 --> 00:16:59.639 New Gulf. And the best part, they intersect each 00:16:59.639 --> 00:17:02.039 other. It's a maze. It feels like the city planners 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:04.539 just gave up and hit copy -paste. And when the 00:17:04.539 --> 00:17:07.619 official names fail us, or are just too long, 00:17:07.740 --> 00:17:11.279 we see the final layer of naming. The nicknames. 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:14.319 The user -generated content. The shorthand. Right. 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:17.019 In Chicago, nobody says Lakeshore Drive. It's 00:17:17.019 --> 00:17:19.299 LSD. Which gives the commute a very different 00:17:19.299 --> 00:17:21.859 psychedelic vibe. In Williamsburg, the Duke of 00:17:21.859 --> 00:17:23.759 Gloucester Street is a mouthful, so locals call 00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:26.480 it Dog Street. It's a way of reclaiming the city, 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:28.119 isn't it? The planners can put whatever they 00:17:28.119 --> 00:17:30.180 want on the sign, but we live here, so we'll 00:17:30.180 --> 00:17:32.380 call it what we want. It adds intimacy. It separates 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:34.579 the locals from the tourists. If you say the 00:17:34.579 --> 00:17:37.019 Oz in Seattle, everyone knows you mean University 00:17:37.019 --> 00:17:40.059 Way. It's a shibboleth. So we've covered a lot 00:17:40.059 --> 00:17:42.240 of ground here. We've gone from the butcher shops 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:44.859 of medieval England to the number grids of Salt 00:17:44.859 --> 00:17:47.380 Lake to the political battlegrounds of Ukraine. 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:50.319 What's the big takeaway? When I look at that 00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:53.279 sign on the corner tomorrow, what should I be 00:17:53.279 --> 00:17:56.259 seeing? I think you should see a fossil. A street 00:17:56.259 --> 00:18:00.160 sign freezes a specific moment in time. What 00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:03.500 that society valued, who was in power, or what 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:06.299 building just burned down. When you look at a 00:18:06.299 --> 00:18:08.940 map, you aren't just looking at geography. you 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:11.859 are reading a history book written on metal poles. 00:18:12.059 --> 00:18:14.619 That's a powerful image. It turns a commute into 00:18:14.619 --> 00:18:17.059 a history lesson. It does. But it also raises 00:18:17.059 --> 00:18:18.960 a question that I've been thinking about, especially 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.599 regarding new developments. What's that? If street 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:24.839 names are fossils of what a society values, look 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:26.599 at what we are building today. Look at the new 00:18:26.599 --> 00:18:29.859 suburbs. Whispering Pines, Serenity Way, Falcon 00:18:29.859 --> 00:18:32.180 Ridge. Exactly. We call these fantasy names. 00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:34.839 They're marketing terms. They are chosen specifically 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.720 to be... Inoffensive, soothing, and distinct 00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:40.519 from the urban chaos. Nobody's naming a street 00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:42.920 The Shambles anymore. It's all very beige. So 00:18:42.920 --> 00:18:45.059 my final thought for you, to the listener, is 00:18:45.059 --> 00:18:49.000 this. If historians in a hundred years look at 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:51.099 our maps to figure out what was important to 00:18:51.099 --> 00:18:54.539 us, what will they find? Will they see our heroes 00:18:54.539 --> 00:18:57.480 and our history? Or will they just see a blank, 00:18:57.559 --> 00:19:02.079 generic map of pleasant valleys? Are we erasing 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:05.299 our own identity by trying to be too safe? That 00:19:05.299 --> 00:19:07.500 is a haunting thought. We might be leaving behind 00:19:07.500 --> 00:19:09.740 a map that says absolutely nothing about who 00:19:09.740 --> 00:19:12.519 we were. A map of ghosts without names. Well, 00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:14.559 on that cheerful note, thank you for guiding 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:16.119 us through the streets today. I'm definitely 00:19:16.119 --> 00:19:17.859 going to take the long way home and read some 00:19:17.859 --> 00:19:19.980 signs. Watch out for the Strava News. Will do. 00:19:20.220 --> 00:19:22.519 Thanks for listening to this deep dive. Check 00:19:22.519 --> 00:19:24.599 your signs, people. You never know what you might 00:19:24.599 --> 00:19:24.900 find.