Without alleys, garages have moved to the front of the house in America.  As a matter of design, the garage in front of the house is a disaster.  The gigantic door presents a blank wall to the street.  Tarted up with extra moldings or a checkerboard paint job, it can look even worse by drawing more attention to itself.  Anyway, it is inescapably the dominant feature of the house’s front. And if it takes up a third of the façade, which is often the case, then it disfigures what remains, no matter how elegant.  Moreover, when you consider that every house on the street has a similar gaping blank façade, you end up with a degraded street as well as a degraded architecture