Alley and garage variations

New Urban News Technical Page by Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell

Every component of urbanism possesses both technical and social dimensions. While there are always good reasons for a traditional component or relationship of components to assume a standard form, there are also times when some widespread alteration of social circumstance licenses, indeed demands, technical reinvention.

For example, some household areas in earlier generations were judged, however stereotypically, to be the natural turf of adult males. Today they are often endangered spaces, either becoming extraterritorial or vanishing altogether. The pressures come both from within — changes resulting from the shift from one wage earner to two, and consequent reallocation of conventional responsibilities; and from without — misdirected ordinances or utopian homeowner association rules which try to banish activities judged detrimental to values. The male territories of garage and driveway, now under social pressure to be cleaned up, are good candidates for support by urban technical invention.