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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2999 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 19, 2025

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This has nothing to do with attached garages and everything to do with garages being the most prominent part of house facades. The latter is indeed bad, but an attached garage is neither necessary nor sufficient for this to happen.

There's also a section on other ways to utilize the interior space. I disagree that attached garages are a net negative, but the argument is not purely aesthetic.

There being other ways to utilize the interior space is only a benefit if you're actually going to use it. I already have a basement I don't really use for anything; I'm not parking my car outside so I have more wasted interior space.

If we're arguing against garages, period, that's one thing. Detached garages are still a utilization of interior space, though, so they don't get a pass there.

I think this has to do with the lots getting narrower and narrower in the US. You can no longer build your house next to a garage without violating various bylaws about setbacks. Look at "Walter White's house", a two-car garage takes up literally half the frontage. You would need to replace the house with a two-storey one to be able to get rid of the garage on its façade and even then it would be a squeeze: the lot is 72 feet wide, with two 6-foot side setbacks it's just 60 feet, a nice two-storey house is 40 feet wide, which leaves just enough space for an attached two-car garage that doesn't crowd the facade.

Front setbacks are bullshit, no doubt about it. However even in this case, plenty of Mista White's neighbors are parking their cars further back. Seems it should be trivially possible to put a garage where that car is and move the main house closer to the curb to compensate. There's no windows on the side facade of the house anyway. I am not aware of setback requirements treating houses and garages differently, but I may be unaware.

Are lots getting narrower in the US? It is my impression that they are getting wider.

I have seen US houses built on agglomerations of four 25′×110′ lots. Obviously, a 25-foot-wide lot would have approximately zero buildable area under most modern zoning codes (example). But such a lot was perfectly buildable back when the lot was originally laid out, one or two hundred years ago.

This video I watched says they are: https://youtube.com/watch?v=b8wnnFUazOY

I think you’re both right but looking at different time periods. Two story houses built on deep, narrow lots were the rule throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in what were often called the “streetcar suburbs.” As the name suggests, residents originally relied primarily on public transportation and so didn’t need lots large enough to accommodate stables, carriage houses, or garages. That changed during the post-war era, when modern suburban neighborhoods with their one story houses on relatively large lots became the norm. Most newer subdivisions these days seem to contain relatively large houses on lots that are smaller than those of the 1950s but wider than those of the 1910s (though not necessarily much larger in terms of total square footage).

The wider your roads, the more the logic of efficient land use pushes you towards deep, narrow lots (in order to get as many square feet of lot per square foot of road as possible). Nathan Lewis points out that the US has had very wide roads by international standards since before the invention of the car, and therefore deeper and narrower lots for most of the late C19/early C20.

After car ownership became widespread, the US avoided the problems of wide roads and deep, narrow lots by insisting on lots which are incredibly large for the size of the house. Levittown mostly consisted of 800 sq ft houses (not counting the garage) on 6000 sq ft lots.

Nathan Lewis points out that the US has had very wide roads by international standards since before the invention of the car, and therefore deeper and narrower lots for most of the late C19/early C20.

That link goes to a page listing 120 articles, if I counted correctly, many with titles related to street width. Two which article are you referring?

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