How to improve the knowledge of direction to places in the city?

Keep driving there over and over again until you know it. GPS will help. If you still don’t succeed there is something wrong.

look for landmarks that can be seen from a distance. try and remember street names. get aquainted with the underground/subway system if there is one.

Get a Tom Tom or hand held GPS, I never leave home without mine! (If I did I wouldn’t be fluthering right now, I would be lost somewhere in the bush)

When I move to a new city I take a day a week just to ‘get lost’. Drive around (if that’s how you usually get around) and just take roads. When you’re driving and you see something you know- try to make a connection to something. Example- the road with Einstein bagels is the road that also has Whole Foods. Something to make the connection in your head.

Spend some time studying maps of the city, and where certain roads are in relevance to you (much cheaper than buying a TomTom). Looking at a map helps identify what parts of a city are called, and what roads lead to expressways or major roads that can get you home. If you have a car, take a section of the city and spend some time driving around it. Deliberately get lost (although with a map, you’re never really lost.)

Maps are fun.

I usually like to find unusual things on the way to let me know im on the right way, like unique landmarks, certain restaurants, anything you can remember !

Taxi?

Purchase the large format softcover book map for your ‘region’, ‘county’, or ‘metropolitan area’. Go out early Sun mornings and drive the route to and from key places . Your home is the starting point. If your car has no compass, as least get a compass. That way , relative to your map and North always at the top of the page you practice ‘staying oriented’ in space. You get positive feedback from the map verifying your orientation. Target on the map the nearest ‘shopping center’/mall and go there from home and back. Learn how to use the address appendix of you map so you can look up map coordinates relative to your street addresses of friends in the hinter lands. Have fun! It is empowering to ‘master the space you live in ’.

I just spent five months in an unfamiliar city and frequently got lost. I had a good map to the city, and I highlighted routes I knew (e.g. home to school, bridge to home, school to bus station). If I was lost, I would need to either find my or ask directions to familiar landmarks or streets rather than all the way to my destination. As I figured out more links, I would highlight them as well. Then I started purposely seeking routes between two places I knew to add them to my web of successful navigation.

In addition to the use of maps and landmarks that others have suggested, I find that a compass can be very helpful.

There is a recently published book that talks about navigation, human and animal. http://tinyurl.com/yfcqmsc I have not had a chance to read it, but it looks like fun, though I am not sure how much it will help with your specific problem