Q. American Streets?

I was wondering why are american streets called1st, second 3rd etc? like on this tv show this guy was saying 'Im on 5th Avenue' is that what you call your streets numbers? so each street has a number? dont they just have names e.g barton street (an example)

some street have numbers others have names.. it's easier to navigate a big city if the streets are numbered since they are sequential.. if its just names it's much harder to know where you're going and learn the layout.

Mostly to better organize city planning for local governments. My question, why do most American towns have a Maple street?

The downtown areas (center of the large cities usually) may have numbered streets. So 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. running in a particular direction (for example, West to East). Lettered streets then run in the perpendicular direction. So A, B, C, etc. would, in this example, be running (North to South). I don't think this is always the case and there is still a large amount of regularly named streets.

Mostly to better organize city planning for local governments. My question, why do most American towns have a Maple street?

Darthmatt

Well lets face it a number is jst as good as a name, maybe not as creative but doesnt really matter

Also i believe there named that way because american citys are built in a grid system.