Blocks

"Where do you live?"
"14 Mile and Woodward."
"Really? My brother is over on 13 and Maple. We're at Quarton and Telegraph."

When I lived in Europe, I laughed at the idea that most American streets were built in a direct north-south or east-west line with major intersections at exactly one-mile intervals. Boring, I said. Unimaginative.

Now I understand that it makes finding your way around much, much easier than in sinuous Europe. And, as in the above example, you can tell people where you live - without revealing the exact address, I might add - by simply naming the two streets that intersect closest to you (for the record, we're off Inkster and Walnut Lake).

To make things even easier, many of the the east-west roads are often named after the distance in miles from the city centre.

Add to this the fact that many cars have an onboard compass indicating the direction (N, S, E, W) in which you are travelling, and you don't need an IQ of more than about 25 to find your way from A to B (though I bet there's probably someone out there wondering how far 8 Mile is from 12 Mile).

Sat-navs; who needs 'em?