～街
～がい · ～gai · JLPT N1 · noun
town
🏘️ Radical 行 (road, walk): a 街 is a town made of streets
Used as a suffix: 商店街 (shopping street), 住宅街 (residential area). Alone it is read まち (machi), meaning town or street.
街 — 行 (go) + 圭 (jade tablets, phonetic)
街 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The outer 行 originally depicted a crossroads and gives the meaning 'road' or 'thoroughfare'. The inner 圭 supplies the sound. Together they denote a street or public way through a town.