[Chicago103]

Could lack of alleys and fewer gangways be a reason that New York City is so much denser than Chicago? I.E. without alleys block sizes can be smaller, cramming more residential space into areas. One other thing I notice less common in New York City is gangways (spaces between houses/buildings), in Chicago almost every house has a gangway. In New York City it is quite common to see an entire row of residential buildings a block long without a single gangway separating any of them, you don't see that in Chicago. What are the dimensions for a typical residential block in the outer boroughs of NYC? I was trying to figure out why Brooklyn is so much more dense than say Lincoln Park or Lakeview in Chicago (heck LP and LV have more highrises than most of Brooklyn) that doesn't look all that different as far as building scale, perhaps this is an answer, as dense Chicago seems on the surface I guess the accumulation of alleys and gangways are big density killers.