Seems like you're outside the US, so I can share some fun little garage facts:
(context: I live in the american quintessential "suburbs", cul-de-sac and all.)
Around my parts, garages are ironically barely, if EVER, used for the cars! Something that surprised us when we moved here. Many houses around here are good examples of american excess; I've seen a couple houses with like between 4-6 cars(!) and all of them are just parked in the driveway (remember with all that space we also have room for like 6-8 cars in a driveway parked 2-by-2 behind each other). People just park all ("all" lol) their cars in the driveway, and then the garage is used for any number of things:
- "shops" for wood/metalworking, or crafts
- table/chairs for those "garage startups"
- giant freezers for meats/breads/etc for larger families
- massive amounts of STUFF -- I've seen way too many garages here that are just filled with hoarder-levels of STUFF. It's disturbing.
Personally, our garage is a 2-car garage, and we put our 1 car in there, and I use the rest for my little hobbyist carpentry area. Not enough space for a full workshop, but when I need more room I pull the car out to the driveway for a bit, then put things away and pull the car back in when I'm finished. That works well enough for me for now.
American suburbs are a bizarre place for sure. Hope that clears some stuff up!
> How do you accumulate that much stuff that you need what's essentially a storage locker at your home?
By having a house, car(s) and kids. And seasons.
My garage is full of: five bikes, eight studded winter tyres (or 8 summer tyres, depending on which part of the year it is), ten large moving boxes full of clothing for other seasons, christmas decorations, tools of every description, cans of paint and other chemicals, large bags with ice hockey equipment, skis, ...
Just the car wheels and the bikes alone occupy most of the space a car would.
> It may also mean you’ll use your garage for something other than a car.
Clearly, the person who wrote this is not a Californian. In suburban California, garages are mostly used as storage lockers for the detritus of our consumer culture.
A bunch of American garages are the same way. There are lots of 2 car garages in suburbs that only have enough empty space for 1 car, if any at all. I suspect that this may be more of an international phenomenon.
Growing up, I'd hear of all of these big tech companies that got started in some guy's parent's garage. I considered my parent's 1 car garage: mom complained when she couldn't put the car in it, and the rest was filled with tools and the lawnmower. No way a company other than a car shop could get started there.
> If you don't own your own home with a garage (which I think is the majority of Americans)
I'm not sure why ownership matters... Renting a home with a garage works just as well.
I'm also kind of curious why you think a majority of Americans don't have off-street parking? In suburban and rural areas it's standard to have a garage or at least a permanent parking spot. To me it seems like only in the very densest cities that people have to use street parking. And even in the city there are plenty of apartments/condos with dedicated parking.
What kind of neighborhood is representative of what you're imagining? Maybe I'm just not picturing it right.
> for renters or more normal folks who have to park on the street
I think categorizing people into "with garages" and "normal" might be a little contentious. A quick search indicates 63% percent of all housing units have a garage or carport[1]. Housing Unit includes apartments and condos. I'm sure it's very geographic, and in large cities the number will be much lower - but many many Americans live in suburbs, where 80% will have garages - this doesn't make them abnormal or particularly wealthy.
Not sure where you are from but Americans have mind boggling amount of stuff. There are people in my neighborhood who have 3 car garages attached to their house and yet they park their cars in the driveway because the garages are full of junk.
A lot of garages in the United States are 2 car garages where the cars are parked side by side. So you need a wide garage door to get the cars in and out.
> My house was built in 2005, with a garage made to fit the cars at the time, and with ~177” of usable length (some space is taken up by HVAC + water heater),
20-24 feet length has been common garage size for about a century, as long as there have been garages, well before HVAC or water heaters were common in garages. 177 inches is less than 14.75 ft; even with that being net of HVAC and water heater, you just had a small (and/or poorly designed in terms of HVAC/water heater placement) garage, not a garage "made to fit cars of the time".
When used as a workspace, those massive garage doors come in very handy. They make it easy to get a lot of airflow through the garage and move large equipment or the product of your project in and out without having to squeeze past whatever car is also parked there. They may not look nice, but those large doors are very practical.
It's apparently too much trouble for this guy to clean up his garage. In the community he bought into, that's where you park your truck. If he didn't like it, he could have bought elsewhere.
(context: I live in the american quintessential "suburbs", cul-de-sac and all.)
Around my parts, garages are ironically barely, if EVER, used for the cars! Something that surprised us when we moved here. Many houses around here are good examples of american excess; I've seen a couple houses with like between 4-6 cars(!) and all of them are just parked in the driveway (remember with all that space we also have room for like 6-8 cars in a driveway parked 2-by-2 behind each other). People just park all ("all" lol) their cars in the driveway, and then the garage is used for any number of things: - "shops" for wood/metalworking, or crafts - table/chairs for those "garage startups" - giant freezers for meats/breads/etc for larger families - massive amounts of STUFF -- I've seen way too many garages here that are just filled with hoarder-levels of STUFF. It's disturbing.
Personally, our garage is a 2-car garage, and we put our 1 car in there, and I use the rest for my little hobbyist carpentry area. Not enough space for a full workshop, but when I need more room I pull the car out to the driveway for a bit, then put things away and pull the car back in when I'm finished. That works well enough for me for now.
American suburbs are a bizarre place for sure. Hope that clears some stuff up!
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