Street - As Distinct From Other Spaces

As Distinct From Other Spaces

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.