Front-Facing Garages Can Be Great

Our townhouse development's streets safely teem with playing kids

Our neighborhood is similar to this. Our street trees are grown out and we do not really have front lawns. [Source]

I made the mistake of tweeting my belief that front-facing garages are actually better for townhouses than rear-facing garages. Front-facing consumes less land, funnels people into one shared space, and allows for a private backyard or, I daydream, a semi-private shared greenspace. Sneering Twitterers declared I was condemning children to being hit and run over by drivers, exacerbated by parked cars blocking sidewalks and multiple conflict points. The narcissism of small differences came to mind. It reminded me, as a recent convert to urbanism, to be thoughtful about how we come across. Urbanists and YIMBYs are perceived as arrogant, self-absorbed, and combative. Bad news, there is some truth to that critique! Twitter is not real life, but Twitter mobs are certainly a PR problem for the YIMBY movement. And regularly upsetting oneself and picking fights online is not good for anyone.

This piece is, admittedly, an extended rebuttal, describing how front-facing garages work quite well for my townhouse neighborhood. Crucially, no one parks their car blocking the sidewalk, in part because of implicit social pressure, but also because, as far as I know, that is an HOA violation. Our streets are somewhat wide, but most drivers are slow and careful, especially if they live here. They know there are lots of kids around, particularly in the afternoons, with a sprinkling of nannies and moms pushing little ones in strollers throughout the day.

The biggest benefit I see from front-facing garages is that everyone facing a street must use it to enter or exit their home. This leads to more serendipitous interactions between neighbors coming and going or just hanging out. It is a blessing for us as parents of young children. Retirees and dog walkers enjoy chatting with each other and crossing paths with the kids. Garages are a focal point of our neighborhood’s social life: Water tables for toddlers, driveway birthday parties, even tailgating. Our garages seem to be a crude but serviceable substitute for porches.

All of these interactions help us humanize and connect with each other. We actually feel like neighbors. That is extremely important in an era of alienation, social isolation, and weak community ties. And it makes us much less likely to drive quickly or carelessly. ‘I should slow down a bit, I just passed little Timmy’s house.’ I would almost argue that cars are guests on our neighborhood’s streets. Most delivery drivers seem aware of the need to be careful. And our mail carrier and trash and recycling pickup crews are well aware of their celebrity/hero status among the kids. The most danger to kids I have perceived is from a handful of non-residents driving too quickly.

Tuck-under duplexes in Palisades Park, NJ on Google Streetview via Salim Furth

Urbanists also underrate private garages as general and bike storage. And as car storage! I would rather extend my car’s useful life out of the elements, and not get rained on as I strap in our kids. I work from home so we sold our second car. Our two-car garage is narrow but gives us plenty of room for one car and two e-bikes, two big strollers, etc. If we had a one-car garage, our car would probably lose out to the other stuff. Indeed, secure storage is a sticking point for some folks trying to join the e-bike revolution and rationally worried about thieves (and weathering). Apartment dwellers in dense areas, who would especially benefit from e-bikes and cargo bikes, have the hardest time figuring out where to store them. I am grateful for our garage.

As a good urbanist I like grids and connected street networks. Living on a grid would mean dealing with through traffic, which would be pretty fast given our streets’ width. If our development were simply larger, drivers might go faster. I would hope for narrower streets and safer design in either scenario. Instead we have one road entrance, which is fine for walkability. Our development abuts a wide, fast, hilly road but is compact enough that we can easily walk to Aldi, CVS, a frugal and friendly pizza place, and a big park. The highway-like design of our main road is a much bigger constraint on livability than not being on a grid, and hopefully easier to change.

The critique that front-facing garages are ugly seems valid but is not weighty enough to change my mind. I will set aside aesthetic subjectivity and take the claim at face value. Garages are not attractive. Our neighborhood admittedly looks sterile, even with trees that are, according to longtime HOAers, too large for the space alloted to them. I accept that trade-off. Paved, featureless rear-facing alleys are even less attractive and consume more land. Beautiful, ennobling neighborhoods are a lost art in the U.S., well beyond private garage placement. Arguments largely comprising taste and “feel” do arouse my suspicion. Our neighborhood feels fine, because of how the people living here relate to each other.

The bottom section of this site plan is an example of compromise, with streets running perpendicular to rows of townhomes. This is a great way to fit clusters of townhomes onto lots in neighborhoods of detached, single-family homes. Most front doors, the nominal main entrance, open onto a shared greenspace rather than the street. Garages open onto a narrow alley. I see how this could work well. Kids can safely learn to bike in the alleys. The shared greenspaces have great potential for intimate community and block parties. The potential downside is folks not interacting much because they drive in and out of the alleys and rarely use their front door. I am more than happy that we ended up in a neighborhood of front-facing garages.

My family’s thoroughly pleasant experience suggests to me that urbanist ideals like minimizing conflict points and connecting the street network are directionally correct but interact in complex ways and are mediated by small details. The folks who got so upset with me on Twitter seemed to simply despise garages, as an extension of our shared resentment of car dependency. But car dependency is our reality. Making the best of it requires trade-offs, and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

If you enjoy this blog or want to work together, do reach out at lucagattonicelli@substack.com. I would love to write about a topic suggested to me by a reader. Visit YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, the grassroots pro-housing organization I founded, at yimbysofnova.org.