How an era of rampant expansion—and sloppy spelling—led to the creation of strange or questionable street names in Las Vegas:

“With all this rapid expansion came strange civic issues. As Rothman notes in his book, police officers were given new maps of the city every week. Some of the streets on the map, he points out, had been misspelled—not on the map, but on the street sign itself. As a particular instance of this, he cites Jane Austin Avenue, in North Las Vegas—like the snout-nosed McMansions that call it home, Jane Austin Avenue is an ugly and misguided gesture at Old World luster. If you take a closer look at this particular subdivision, which has streets named for dead Europeans and luxury automobiles, you’ll notice Jane Austin isn’t the only spelling error around. We also have Alfa Romero [sic] Ave and De [sic] Vinci Ct. The developer’s carelessness is stunning. They’re not alone.”