When I lived in a tight neighborhood of postage-stamp sized lots on a slope, everybody parked in the street. We would put one car in the driveway and the other in the street because although they both technically fit in the driveway, it was very steep and I didn't like parking at the top of the slope. Also, we both worked various schedules and it was inconvenient to have to shuffle cars because somebody was always blocked in.
Sometimes the "family" that lived across the street from us (literally about a half-dozen Mexican men of questionable immigration status, plus two women and four kids) used to park their cars along their side of the street and also on our side, often blocking the mailbox. We would sometimes not get mail for a week at a time because of other peoples' cars in front of our house. Several times the mailman left our mail after three or four days with a nastygram letting us know our box was blocked, and he had to get OUT of his TRUCK (the horror) to deliver it. But what could we do? It wasn't our car, and even if we'd been able to tell which of the dudes owned it, none of them spoke English.
Then the house burned down, I think shortly after the people living there were evicted but I can't be sure. I know there was an investigation after the fire but I don't know what the result was. So glad we don't live there any more.
Now I live in a neighborhood where the lots have a lot of frontage, so usually even if people have short driveways there's plenty of room to park in front of your own house. We can get six cars in the driveway and five more on the street before we end up in front of someone else's property, it's pretty cool.
But yeah, I think there is a big difference between being in a place like my neighborhood, where you own everything right up to the street (there are no sidewalks, or even curbs), and a big city where the houses are close together and the area in front of your house is a crowded public street. Especially if there are marked public spaces on the pavement, nobody owns those. The only thing that irritates me when people park on the street in this neighborhood is sometimes my across-the-street neighbor's lawn guy parks his truck right across from my driveway, which makes it harder to back out. But otherwise, people are pretty considerate and don't block each others' mailboxes, driveways, or trash cans. But then, we have the space to be able to pull up a few feet if needed.
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Topic: Today I'm gonna... (Read 1346088 times)