A trend in some larger cities right now has neighbors restoring the old-fashioned front porch culture that once flourished in most towns. That means they sit in plain view of passers-by, exchange niceties with those on the sidewalk and hold gatherings that welcome neighbors stopping in. What makes this possible in some ‘hoods, while others sequester residents in private spaces? Bill Lucy, an urban planning professor at UVA, told us that front porch life goes hand-in-hand with a neighborhood’s walkability: "If there are places to walk to and reasons to walk to them, then the front porch enhances the walking environment," he says. "As it happens in Charlottesville, there are many neighborhoods which have both."
 Dorothy Collier makes good use of her porch. Her neighbors in Belmont have reasons to walk by, what with their proximity to Downtown—a key factor in a vibrant porch culture. |
Essentially, those are the neighborhoods that ring Downtown: Belmont, North Downtown, Fifeville and 10th and Page. Residential areas in the county tend not to be very walkable, Lucy says, although a well-sited school that’s not absolutely enormous—as in the Woodbrook development—helps.
Hoping for a chatty place to live? Look for porches rather than decks. "The deck is privatized, intended to remove people from the view of neighbors," explains Lucy. "The front porch does the opposite." And porches that are close to the street make interaction easier. Lucy’s own house is on Second Street NE, where porches are only 3′ to 15′ from the sidewalk and most homeowners use the tiny front yards for gardening, not lawns. Thus, "instead of getting grass and lawn mowers and fumes and noise," he says, passersby enjoy quiet gardens and, often, gardeners.
Finally, cul-de-sacs are bad for porch culture. On a dead end, says Lucy, "There are not very many people and most of them will be driving to and from the cul-de-sac. It minimizes the walking and meeting and greeting."—E.H.
