[steven]

Like chiuchimu said, southern CA is ridiculous... I think that it is probably one of the easiest places to navigate. Streets are usually E/W or N/S. With that in mind, pretty much no matter how arbitrary street names seem to be you can still head in the general direction.

Here, I guess for geographical reasons as much as any other, roads don't really follow those N/S E/W rules. So I think intersections lose their meaning, in the California sense that is. I did have the epiphany a while back that simply giving streets names in Japan wouldn't really help much (it might help a bit for local people... ) because of how winding they are. What would improve is the ability to give and receive directions. When someone tells you to go down "hana" street (or whatever the hell they'd call their street) and make a right on "sakura blvd" you'd have the confidence of knowing you are still on "hana street" every time you pass an intersection because it would be written on a nice lit up street sign. That ability simply doesn't exist... and to implement it would be extremely costly (first you'd have to name all the streets, then you'd have to make all the signs for them, then they'd have to change all their maps, etc). Like Nyororin said, streets change a lot in certain areas, so it probably wouldn't help much anyways. I have to agree that what Japan has going is probably a very decent system considering the conditions. I'm sure it could be bettered, but is it worth it?

And chiuchimu, you're right... everything is gonna have some kind of navigation eventually so that will take care of the problem. It's gonna come out of peoples' pockest one way or another anyways... they'd have to use tax money to make all those signs anyways, so I guess spending money on navigation systems is just an alternative to that. I remember when I bit the bullet and bought my navigation... I thought it was some kind of scam that the companies who made navigation systems were running... like they were proponants for confusing streets so they could sell their goods. At any rate, I've undoubtedly at least broken even on the thing because I haven't had to spend as much money on gas (or toll road fees) while getting lost. Navigation systems aren't perfect though--- EPSECIALLY in the inaka (in cities they are great... around here, chances are they'll mess up).

Having street names is fun though-- Japan is missing out. I remember a neighborhood near where I used to live in CA and they had a nice little theme going-- every street ended in the word "wood". I bet you can imagine all the fantastic combinations the California taxpayer payed for. We also had a street called "hazard", which at one point had one of the most dangerous intersections in the US. Streets like "Gothard" are always fun to see, too.

By the way MMM, I never knew that about the Simpsons and Seattle. That's pretty interesting.