Setbacks are the bane of my infill developments. In Grand Rapids, MI our ordinance requires a minimum 5' side yard setback on each side but a total combined number of 14', effectively wasting an extra 4' of space. I calculated that's roughly wasting 9% of our city's buildable space, enough room for about 22,500 additional homes. Here's a link to a list of all the MI bills part of the Housing Readiness Package currently in committee: https://www.nathanbiller.com/blog/housing-reforms/ They still wouldn't make courtyard blocks legal, but it's a step in the right direction!
To what extent can modern technologies like light tunnels and whole house fans help further to address the natural light and ventilation concerns that originally drove setback rules?
Like light wells? They can, but it’s very easy to create natural light and ventilation through design. A wide and shallow building with a wing extending back along one side of a lot (imagine an L shape). Strong FAR but amazing lighting and ventilation through passive design
Apartment buildings are also built in India with irregular looking profile such that there are no common walls and thus windows are provided for all rooms. However, it doesn't look very elegant.
As part of the Complete Communities Coalition, I’m working on getting something like this implemented in Seattle’s ongoing Comprehensive Plan update. The Courtyard Block Bonus would let you swap the side setbacks for rear courtyards in lowrise zones, with the intent of creating taller, thinner buildings that leave room for useable open space (vs townhomes that take up the entire lot and are oriented towards the side lot lines).
Thank you for this! I had not thought about setbacks as such a defining feature of the American suburban form. I live in NYC and think a lot about our zoning laws. Our 1916 Zoning Resolution (it was completely rewritten in 1961) was written as a 'light and air' response and mandated setbacks for tall buildings. It's why we have the wedding cake design for so many of our iconic buildings of that era (Empire State, Chrysler). Granted our setbacks were not as drastic at the street level; nonetheless, had a serious impact on the way the city looks.
I would be curious to hear your take on why you think setbacks have lasted so long and have become so ingrained in our conception of suburbs. If these regulations were dreamed up over a century ago why is it only in the last decade that we have started to question them? Perhaps the rise of cars allowed this form to proliferate and only now we are feeling the double impact.
Great question. I think the persistence of setbacks over 20th century is caused by design culture that settled in a rut of boxy long buildings rather than buildings with wings.
If you do a long box, then you need side setbacks to provide light to rooms in the middle of the building.
If you build with wings, the lighting and ventilation comes from the inner courtyard space.
I live in the inner city of Chicago. Unlike in much of Chicago, our block's sidewalks are a generous 5 meters from the street and 5 meters from our homes.
I'm grateful for the setbacks, because they allow children to run and bike on the sidewalk without fear of colliding with someone stepping out of a building or a car. The setbacks also allow our block to have street trees, which greatly improve the comfort of walking the neighborhood. The setbacks also allow us to offer amenities to passers-by, such as self-pick herbs and vegetables.
I'm also grateful to not have a party wall, because our home instead gets light and views.
Our block has 25 households (plus a women's group home) on 1.35 ha of land (that number includes street, curb lawn, sidewalk, and alley). And our block is with an 8-minute walk of a stop on Chicago's busiest 'L' line. So I think that blocks can have setbacks and still be very urban.
This is a really thoughtful description of your block, which sounds like a genuinely pleasant environment, and I can see why the setbacks and lack of party walls feel like such a benefit in that context.
One important difference, though, is density. A block with ~25 households on 1.35 hectares is relatively low density, even if it’s near transit. The system I’m describing is trying to solve a different problem: how to accommodate something closer to 150–200 households on a ~2-acre block while still making it work for families.
In many higher-density parts of Chicago, especially on busier streets, front yards don’t function the way you’re describing. Even with setbacks, traffic volumes and speeds make them difficult for small children to use comfortably, and in practice they often become more of a buffer than a usable space. There’s also the everyday issue that these front areas tend to be used by passersby for dog toileting, which limits their usefulness for sitting, play, or gardening.
So the question becomes: where does usable family space go when you scale up density?
That’s where the block configuration matters. If you organize buildings as wider, shallower forms, and place the primary window walls along the wide dimension facing unobstructed space (either the street or an interior courtyard), you can get very strong light and ventilation—even with party walls on the sides. The key is that the main living façades aren’t facing directly into adjacent buildings, but onto open, shared space.
So it’s less about choosing between setbacks and party walls, and more about two different spatial strategies:
Lower-density model (your block): deeper lots, setbacks, separation → light and comfort through distance
Higher-density courtyard model: shallower buildings, shared interior open space, wider primary façades → light and comfort through orientation and geometry
Both approaches can work well, but they’re optimized for different conditions. Once you move into higher-density, higher-traffic urban environments, shifting the most usable outdoor space away from the street and into protected interior courtyards tends to produce spaces that families can actually use day to day.
Your block shows how well setbacks can perform when everything lines up. The courtyard approach is trying to replicate that same livability—but at a much higher intensity of use, where the street edge alone can’t carry that burden.
Setbacks feature in building codes in India as well. However, most areas are developed haphazardly in rather unauthorized way so you see narrow lanes with 4-5 floors on both sides. Courtyards are uncommon.
Even with setbacks, buildings with 4-5 stories on narrow roads give a defined traditional looking form.
There are great many examples of imperfect courtyards. Housing complexes are built with many say 5-8 story buildings around a courtyard provide an irregular form.
Just to clarify, setbacks exist only in planned areas. In any case , planned construction largely is now of housing complexes which have internal streets and semi-courtyards.
I grew up in an apartment in NYC with an interior courtyard. Yes it provided air flow and a little natural light, but I didn’t change the fact that when I looked out my bedroom window there was a brick wall ten feet away. I now live in a dense city by US standards (Cambridge, MA) and live in a multi family home. However, we do have modest setbacks on all sides, and windows in every room with views of trees. The front setback in particular is critical for the first floor unit as it provides a noise and privacy buffer from the street traffic (it’s also full of trees and bushes). Maybe you could design around this but I’m skeptical that you’re just pushing the “unused” space elsewhere.
Obviously many people choose to live in cities (me!) but I really don’t think anyone prefers the noise, pollution and lack of privacy, we just put up with them for the other benefits of living in a city. I’d say we have a revealed preference for “nature” and ultimately there’s a zero sum game over land use, even if good design can definitely mitigate negative impacts.
There are blocks in NYC with large interior courtyards in Queens like they have in Scandinavian blocks, but most of NYC blocks have very high lot coverage and very little courtyard/greenspace.
I’m talking about a format that is much greener than the NYC norm.
More green = more space not used as housing. IMO its a zero sum game and its more of a technocratic fantasy to thing this can be “solved”. You want to think there’s a solution but there are only trade offs. Telling people there’s no downside is sort of unintentional gaslighting and is therefore not a good marketing approach for your preferred policy. Just my opinions no offense intended!
The entire point of tall perimeter planning is that you can achieve very high levels of density and green space. There is no trade off.
Norrebro in Copenhagen has 50k people per square mile. Courtyard block neighborhoods across Europe are typically far denser and greener that lower-rise blocks in US cities with less green space/more lot coverage.
This is because the area is greatest at the perimeter, and you can use wings to extend along lot lines into lots for further lot coverage while still leaving room for courtyard.
Yes, an area that has higher lot coverage and tall buildings can have greater floor area. But the trade off here is that you don't create housing suitable for middle class families, who value yard access and small-scale buildings.
Taller taller taller has drawbacks too, try seeing the sun walking through Manhattan in winter. I’ve lived in NY, Boston, Philly, Atlanta, and Prague, I’ve been to Vienna and Tokyo.. Yes let’s design our cities better and there’s lots of room for that, but I know what I’ve actually experienced, observed and prefer in my life and being told that I just don’t understand the technical solution is just pushing me further into the other camp. At least you’re not talking about white supremacy, which is the first argument most pro density people reach for in Massachusetts!
You don't see that en masse in Europe, why would it be the same case here? Of course there would be a different way of garbage disposal. Let's use our brains here.
This definitely deserves more attention. I'd push back, however, on the statement that setbacks "rarely contribute meaningfully to street life." This would certainly depend on the context, but I think in the Lincoln Square example those yards serve as semi-public space that allow residents a comfortable space to enjoy interactions with the public realm, and in doing so provides for eyes on the street. It's also a space that allows for landscaping design, art, and self-expression that can make a street feel more interesting.
To quote Jan Gehl from Life Between Buildings, "Establishing residential areas so that there is a graduation of outdoor spaces with semipublic, intimate, and familiar spaces nearest the residence also makes it possible to know the people in the area better, and the experience of outdoor spaces as belonging to the residential area results in a greater degree of surveillance and collective responsibility for this public space and its residences" (p. 59).
Most people know that Mid-Atlantic cities like Baltimore and Philly were built with rowhouses with party walls. In the oldest now historic parts of the city there are no front set backs with houses coming up to the side walk. (Areas that were built after 1920’s zoning usually have small front set backs making for tiny front yards).
There are no shared courtyards, instead shared alleys and rear set backs for small patios, parking pads or yards. An attempt to create car free but non- private “Inner Block Parks” through urban renewal in the 1970’s was a flop, creating unsafe no-man’s land. But controvercially, some blocks today petition to be able to gate their alleys to close out non-residents, posing a problem for trash pick up.
People may not be aware that this zero set back, party wall rowhouse form wasnt just an urban thing. The same rowhouse pattern is common in the historic rural county seats and down towns of south central PA and north central Maryland (Lancaster, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, Hagerstown, Frederick etc)
I am thankful I do not live adjacent to one of the "family-friendly" courtyards the author (eloquently) touts - where just One guy who likes blasting music with his windows open will force me inside, with my windows closed. Or closing the windows at the front of my dwelling to stop the sound of cars rushing by.
That sounds like a way for my air conditioning bill to shoot up and my joy in hearing birdsong to plummet.
As an architect, I can imagine moving to such a dwelling for the advantages living in a denser environment offers, but I will miss the quiet, the abundant light, and the cleaner air I enjoy.
I will still avoid a courtyard residence. That may work in the more communally-minded Europe, but not in America.
Setbacks are the bane of my infill developments. In Grand Rapids, MI our ordinance requires a minimum 5' side yard setback on each side but a total combined number of 14', effectively wasting an extra 4' of space. I calculated that's roughly wasting 9% of our city's buildable space, enough room for about 22,500 additional homes. Here's a link to a list of all the MI bills part of the Housing Readiness Package currently in committee: https://www.nathanbiller.com/blog/housing-reforms/ They still wouldn't make courtyard blocks legal, but it's a step in the right direction!
Have you talked to Peter Meijer ? He’s extremely interested in courtyard blocks and bringing better urban form to Grand Rapids.
To what extent can modern technologies like light tunnels and whole house fans help further to address the natural light and ventilation concerns that originally drove setback rules?
Like light wells? They can, but it’s very easy to create natural light and ventilation through design. A wide and shallow building with a wing extending back along one side of a lot (imagine an L shape). Strong FAR but amazing lighting and ventilation through passive design
https://x.com/urbancourtyard/status/2001424337325133856?s=46
Apartment buildings are also built in India with irregular looking profile such that there are no common walls and thus windows are provided for all rooms. However, it doesn't look very elegant.
As part of the Complete Communities Coalition, I’m working on getting something like this implemented in Seattle’s ongoing Comprehensive Plan update. The Courtyard Block Bonus would let you swap the side setbacks for rear courtyards in lowrise zones, with the intent of creating taller, thinner buildings that leave room for useable open space (vs townhomes that take up the entire lot and are oriented towards the side lot lines).
See more here: https://tinyurl.com/CCC-courtyard
this is amazing.
Thank you for this! I had not thought about setbacks as such a defining feature of the American suburban form. I live in NYC and think a lot about our zoning laws. Our 1916 Zoning Resolution (it was completely rewritten in 1961) was written as a 'light and air' response and mandated setbacks for tall buildings. It's why we have the wedding cake design for so many of our iconic buildings of that era (Empire State, Chrysler). Granted our setbacks were not as drastic at the street level; nonetheless, had a serious impact on the way the city looks.
I would be curious to hear your take on why you think setbacks have lasted so long and have become so ingrained in our conception of suburbs. If these regulations were dreamed up over a century ago why is it only in the last decade that we have started to question them? Perhaps the rise of cars allowed this form to proliferate and only now we are feeling the double impact.
Thank you for the post as always!
Great question. I think the persistence of setbacks over 20th century is caused by design culture that settled in a rut of boxy long buildings rather than buildings with wings.
If you do a long box, then you need side setbacks to provide light to rooms in the middle of the building.
If you build with wings, the lighting and ventilation comes from the inner courtyard space.
Thank you! That tracks: classic path dependence. Its hard to go back once you have split a block into lots and built the first set of long boxes.
I live in the inner city of Chicago. Unlike in much of Chicago, our block's sidewalks are a generous 5 meters from the street and 5 meters from our homes.
I'm grateful for the setbacks, because they allow children to run and bike on the sidewalk without fear of colliding with someone stepping out of a building or a car. The setbacks also allow our block to have street trees, which greatly improve the comfort of walking the neighborhood. The setbacks also allow us to offer amenities to passers-by, such as self-pick herbs and vegetables.
I'm also grateful to not have a party wall, because our home instead gets light and views.
Our block has 25 households (plus a women's group home) on 1.35 ha of land (that number includes street, curb lawn, sidewalk, and alley). And our block is with an 8-minute walk of a stop on Chicago's busiest 'L' line. So I think that blocks can have setbacks and still be very urban.
This is a really thoughtful description of your block, which sounds like a genuinely pleasant environment, and I can see why the setbacks and lack of party walls feel like such a benefit in that context.
One important difference, though, is density. A block with ~25 households on 1.35 hectares is relatively low density, even if it’s near transit. The system I’m describing is trying to solve a different problem: how to accommodate something closer to 150–200 households on a ~2-acre block while still making it work for families.
In many higher-density parts of Chicago, especially on busier streets, front yards don’t function the way you’re describing. Even with setbacks, traffic volumes and speeds make them difficult for small children to use comfortably, and in practice they often become more of a buffer than a usable space. There’s also the everyday issue that these front areas tend to be used by passersby for dog toileting, which limits their usefulness for sitting, play, or gardening.
So the question becomes: where does usable family space go when you scale up density?
That’s where the block configuration matters. If you organize buildings as wider, shallower forms, and place the primary window walls along the wide dimension facing unobstructed space (either the street or an interior courtyard), you can get very strong light and ventilation—even with party walls on the sides. The key is that the main living façades aren’t facing directly into adjacent buildings, but onto open, shared space.
So it’s less about choosing between setbacks and party walls, and more about two different spatial strategies:
Lower-density model (your block): deeper lots, setbacks, separation → light and comfort through distance
Higher-density courtyard model: shallower buildings, shared interior open space, wider primary façades → light and comfort through orientation and geometry
Both approaches can work well, but they’re optimized for different conditions. Once you move into higher-density, higher-traffic urban environments, shifting the most usable outdoor space away from the street and into protected interior courtyards tends to produce spaces that families can actually use day to day.
Your block shows how well setbacks can perform when everything lines up. The courtyard approach is trying to replicate that same livability—but at a much higher intensity of use, where the street edge alone can’t carry that burden.
Setbacks feature in building codes in India as well. However, most areas are developed haphazardly in rather unauthorized way so you see narrow lanes with 4-5 floors on both sides. Courtyards are uncommon.
Even with setbacks, buildings with 4-5 stories on narrow roads give a defined traditional looking form.
There are great many examples of imperfect courtyards. Housing complexes are built with many say 5-8 story buildings around a courtyard provide an irregular form.
Just to clarify, setbacks exist only in planned areas. In any case , planned construction largely is now of housing complexes which have internal streets and semi-courtyards.
Excellent, as always.
thank you!!
I grew up in an apartment in NYC with an interior courtyard. Yes it provided air flow and a little natural light, but I didn’t change the fact that when I looked out my bedroom window there was a brick wall ten feet away. I now live in a dense city by US standards (Cambridge, MA) and live in a multi family home. However, we do have modest setbacks on all sides, and windows in every room with views of trees. The front setback in particular is critical for the first floor unit as it provides a noise and privacy buffer from the street traffic (it’s also full of trees and bushes). Maybe you could design around this but I’m skeptical that you’re just pushing the “unused” space elsewhere.
Obviously many people choose to live in cities (me!) but I really don’t think anyone prefers the noise, pollution and lack of privacy, we just put up with them for the other benefits of living in a city. I’d say we have a revealed preference for “nature” and ultimately there’s a zero sum game over land use, even if good design can definitely mitigate negative impacts.
There are blocks in NYC with large interior courtyards in Queens like they have in Scandinavian blocks, but most of NYC blocks have very high lot coverage and very little courtyard/greenspace.
I’m talking about a format that is much greener than the NYC norm.
More green = more space not used as housing. IMO its a zero sum game and its more of a technocratic fantasy to thing this can be “solved”. You want to think there’s a solution but there are only trade offs. Telling people there’s no downside is sort of unintentional gaslighting and is therefore not a good marketing approach for your preferred policy. Just my opinions no offense intended!
The entire point of tall perimeter planning is that you can achieve very high levels of density and green space. There is no trade off.
Norrebro in Copenhagen has 50k people per square mile. Courtyard block neighborhoods across Europe are typically far denser and greener that lower-rise blocks in US cities with less green space/more lot coverage.
This is because the area is greatest at the perimeter, and you can use wings to extend along lot lines into lots for further lot coverage while still leaving room for courtyard.
Yes, an area that has higher lot coverage and tall buildings can have greater floor area. But the trade off here is that you don't create housing suitable for middle class families, who value yard access and small-scale buildings.
Taller taller taller has drawbacks too, try seeing the sun walking through Manhattan in winter. I’ve lived in NY, Boston, Philly, Atlanta, and Prague, I’ve been to Vienna and Tokyo.. Yes let’s design our cities better and there’s lots of room for that, but I know what I’ve actually experienced, observed and prefer in my life and being told that I just don’t understand the technical solution is just pushing me further into the other camp. At least you’re not talking about white supremacy, which is the first argument most pro density people reach for in Massachusetts!
So, no access to alleys and garbage gets stacked out front on the street. Awesome. 🙄
Sounds like a recipe for a bleak, treeless hellscape, despite the pretty Eurocity pictures.
God save us from academic urban planners.
Many European cities with more advanced urban systems, they have garbage and services buried underground. Thanks for the amazing engagement!!
https://youtu.be/0JtoSafhvLM
You don't see that en masse in Europe, why would it be the same case here? Of course there would be a different way of garbage disposal. Let's use our brains here.
We are. Enclosed courtyards and HOAs governing them are anathema to American ideas of property ownership.
Completely different point to what you just complained about, but sure.
It was in another of my responses to the OP.
This definitely deserves more attention. I'd push back, however, on the statement that setbacks "rarely contribute meaningfully to street life." This would certainly depend on the context, but I think in the Lincoln Square example those yards serve as semi-public space that allow residents a comfortable space to enjoy interactions with the public realm, and in doing so provides for eyes on the street. It's also a space that allows for landscaping design, art, and self-expression that can make a street feel more interesting.
To quote Jan Gehl from Life Between Buildings, "Establishing residential areas so that there is a graduation of outdoor spaces with semipublic, intimate, and familiar spaces nearest the residence also makes it possible to know the people in the area better, and the experience of outdoor spaces as belonging to the residential area results in a greater degree of surveillance and collective responsibility for this public space and its residences" (p. 59).
Most people know that Mid-Atlantic cities like Baltimore and Philly were built with rowhouses with party walls. In the oldest now historic parts of the city there are no front set backs with houses coming up to the side walk. (Areas that were built after 1920’s zoning usually have small front set backs making for tiny front yards).
There are no shared courtyards, instead shared alleys and rear set backs for small patios, parking pads or yards. An attempt to create car free but non- private “Inner Block Parks” through urban renewal in the 1970’s was a flop, creating unsafe no-man’s land. But controvercially, some blocks today petition to be able to gate their alleys to close out non-residents, posing a problem for trash pick up.
People may not be aware that this zero set back, party wall rowhouse form wasnt just an urban thing. The same rowhouse pattern is common in the historic rural county seats and down towns of south central PA and north central Maryland (Lancaster, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, Hagerstown, Frederick etc)
I am thankful I do not live adjacent to one of the "family-friendly" courtyards the author (eloquently) touts - where just One guy who likes blasting music with his windows open will force me inside, with my windows closed. Or closing the windows at the front of my dwelling to stop the sound of cars rushing by.
That sounds like a way for my air conditioning bill to shoot up and my joy in hearing birdsong to plummet.
As an architect, I can imagine moving to such a dwelling for the advantages living in a denser environment offers, but I will miss the quiet, the abundant light, and the cleaner air I enjoy.
I will still avoid a courtyard residence. That may work in the more communally-minded Europe, but not in America.
Thank you for the provocative article!