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A road, like a street, is often paved and used for travel. However, a street is characterized by the degree and quality of street life it facilitates, whereas a road serves primarily as a through passage for road vehicles or (less frequently) pedestrians. Buskers, beggars, boulevardiers, patrons of pavement cafés, peoplewatchers, streetwalkers, and a diversity of other characters are habitual users of a street; the same people would not typically be found on a road. In rural and suburban environments where street life is rare, the terms "street" and "road" are frequently considered interchangeable. Still, even here, what is called a "street" is usually a smaller thoroughfare, such as a road within a housing development feeding directly into individual driveways. In the last half of the 20th century these streets often abandoned the tradition of a rigid, rectangular grid, and instead were designed to discourage through traffic. This and other traffic calming methods provided quiet for families and play space for children. Adolescent suburbanites find, in attenuated form, the amenities of street life in shopping malls where vehicles are forbidden. If a road connects places, then a street connects people. One may "hit the road" to see the wonders of the world—Jack Kerouac famously chronicled one such journey—but the latest bling will "hit the streets" before it ever appears on a road. It is "on the street" where one hears an interesting rumor, where one bumps into an old acquaintance, where one acquires street smarts. One seldom sees a "road" vendor except of fresh produce, or a "road" performer. You'll never find yourself on a long "street" to nowhere or under assault by a violent "road" gang, hence politicians seldom view with alarm the prevalence of "crime in the roads". The street, not the road is home to the homeless unless they are hoboes, and even Kerouac's hero finally returned to find his friends on a New York street. A town square or plaza is a little more like a street, but a town square is rarely paved with asphalt and may not make any concessions for through traffic at all. Nomenclature__ Main article: Street or road name Nevsky Prospekt, is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, 1901. An avenue in São Paulo. There is a haphazard relationship, at best, between a thoroughfare's function and its name. For example, London's Abbey Road serves all the vital functions of a street, despite its name, and locals are more apt to refer to the "street" outside than the "road". A desolate road in rural Montana, on the other hand, may bear a sign proclaiming it "Davidson Street", but this does not make it a "street" except in the original sense of a paved road. In the United Kingdom many towns will refer to their main thoroughfare as the High Street (in the United States it would be called the Main Street—however, occasionally "Main Street" in a city or town is a street other than the de facto main thoroughfare), and many of the ways leading off it will be named "Road" despite the urban setting. Thus the town's so-called "Roads" will actually be more street like than a road. Some streets may even be called highways. Hurontario Street in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, is commonly referred to as "Highway 10"—even though such a highway designation no longer officially exists. This is probably due to the fact that the street is a modern suburban arterial that was urbanized after decades of having the status and function a true highway, so people continued to use the number because of force of habit. In some other English-speaking countries, such as New Zealand and Australia, cities are often divided by a main "Road," with "Streets" leading from this "Road", or are divided by thoroughfares known as "Streets" or "Roads" with no apparent differentiation between the two. In Auckland, for example, the main shopping precinct is around Queen Street and Karangahape Road. Streets have existed for as long as humans have lived in permanent settlements (see civilization). However, modern civilization in much of the New World developed around transportation provided by motor vehicles. In some parts of the English-speaking world, such as North America, many think of the street as a thoroughfare for vehicular traffic first and foremost. In this view, pedestrian traffic is incidental to the street's purpose; a street consists of a thoroughfare running through the middle (in essence, a road), and may or may not have pavements along the sides. In an even narrower sense, some may think of a street as only the vehicle-driven and parking part of the thoroughfare. Thus, pavements and road verges would not be thought of as part of the street. A mother may tell her toddlers "Don't go out into the street, so you don't get hit by a car." Among urban residents of the English-speaking world, the word appears to carry its original connotations (i.e., the facilitation of traffic as a prime purpose, and "street life" as an incidental benefit). For instance, a New York Times writer lets casually slip the observation that automobile-laden Houston Street is "a street that can hardly be called 'street' anymore, transformed years ago into an eight-lane raceway that alternately resembles a Nascar event and a parking lot."[10] Published in the paper's Metro section, the article evidently presumes an audience with an innate grasp of the modern urban role of the street. To the readers of the Metro section, vehicular traffic does not reinforce, but rather detracts from, the essential "street-ness" of a street. At least one map has been made to illustrate the geography of naming conventions for thoroughfares; street, avenue, boulevard, circle, and other suffixes are contrasted against one another.[11] |
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