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You prefer the Japanese way over the way it's done just about everywhere else in the world?
Gee what a surprise that is!
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I prefer the way it is done in Japan as
the way to do it in Japan.
Do you really think that changing over to a street name based system would make things easier in Japan? It`s not the address system, it`s the roads and the way they are made that is the issue - not the addresses. Even if there were names for every street, and all the houses were numbered in order along them... You`d STILL be totally lost because of how many tiny streets, new streets popping up, etc, there are.
It`s the way things are laid out to begin with that is the issue. Any system used is going to have trouble being clear - the system used is the most efficient
for Japanese roads.
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"I`ve never felt lost in Japan without a map, but I`ve been miserably lost in the US without one when trying to hunt for the way to get to a specific street."
Nyororin, while I usually agree with you, this is unbelievable. I've hardly ever felt lost in America, and I pretty much always feel lost in Japan. Of course this has to do with roads that go in every direction, streets without any lighting, and other things of that ilk. In southern CA everything was square and easy to navigate (and a bit boring looking as a result). While I've gained a much better sense of direction since I've moved here, I still don't feel anywhere near as confident as when I drove in CA. I feel safer though  .
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I have been unable to get anywhere close to where I wanted to go many MANY times. I have been looking for an address, have that address in hand, and be completely and totally unable to even get close to the place until I hunted for the street name on a map. I guess "miserably lost" wasn`t the best wording - more like "felt it was hopeless to locate such and such without getting a map or calling them because there were no clues to get me even somewhat close". Numbered streets are easy. Street
names give no clues to what is close to what or to where you are in relation to anything else.
I think part of this is because I do have a fairly poor sense of direction - or rather, I am awful at remembering street names and intersections, so being told such and such intersects with such and such, etc etc, doesn`t really hang around in memory.
The numbers in Japan are the only things that are a pain in my opinion, as they have no logical order. You just have to kind of hunt for them.
Japanese addresses (also Chinese and Korean, as they follow the same system) tend to get a really really bad rap... But they`re quite good at getting you to where you want to be. People love to bring up how street names are so much better - but really, unless the streets are all numbered, how is there more logic in that? Some random name isn`t going to make it easier to get to where you want to go. It`s just the ordered numbers that make it easier once you`re on the right street that make things seem easier.
The Japanese system is a good one - in practice it could use a lot of cleaning up, but the system itself of increasingly smaller areas is quite efficient in getting you into the right area.
If you have a map, I`m pretty sure that any system will work. But wandering around without a map, and on foot (Public transportation FTW), and it`s much much easier to figure out where you are and how close you are to where you need to be with the Asian system.