Drive around neighborhoods in your city. Odds are, there's a big difference between the new developments (1990s and later) and older neighborhoods.

Even in more middle-class neighborhoods, houses used to be built wide, on wide lots. They have a garage off to one side, a front door, and sometimes a porch. Most of the windows face into either the front or back yard. Many are single-storied.

More recently built houses are often long and narrow. The garage takes up almost the entirety of the street-facing side. There is one front-facing window, if that. Most of the windows are on the back, looking into the backyard, because side windows face directly onto the neighbor's house crowding up beside. Houses take up, proportionally, more of the lot. Often they are two stories, with imposing vertical facades.

This seems to reflect a shift in priority. We spend our time indoors, under artificial light, and when we go outside it is just to get into the car to drive somewhere. You don't need a front porch because you'll never sit on it. You don't need a big backyard because you aren't growing anything in it.

Make houses human again.