I hate little front lawns as well - lots of them in the older neighbourhoods ringing the rowhouse districts here. And even within the old parts of the city, many non-residential buildings have these sorts of setbacks - schools and like. Thankfully, most are heavily landscaped with retaining walls, staircases, etc. Minimizes the effect a
little.
There's something about opening your front door and stepping out onto the sidewalk that just feels right to me. The dinky little front lawns separate me from any sense of being in a city.
However, I don't mind a good box garden. I'll be adding one to my house next summer. This is fine to me, still within the limits of what I need:
But this:
It may not be truly bleak and desolate - but it's certainly not an urban lifestyle as I appreciate one. A driveway? Seriously? A scrap of lawn out front?
And you can't build infill in central St. John's that doesn't look like this today. They all have front drivelawns.
But it's not the act of pretending to be something it's not, or trying to be urban and getting it wrong that bothers me so much. If someone wants to build single-family, detached homes right up the sidewalk (there are quite a few neighbourhoods like that here), that still works for me - even though it's suburban masquerading as semi-urban.
It could just be a preference for narrow streets, I suppose. But front-door-to-sidewalk is critical to me.
*****
One other one that I found bleak and desolate. The view from my former cubicle in Winnipeg.
Not trying to be a c**t, so: the skyline behind was a great treat, of course. And there were lots of dense, lively neighbourhoods beyond this view (especially on the opposite side of my building, down toward Broadway). The Exchange, a well-preserved warehouse district, is just on the opposite side of the skyline. I loved that neighbourhood.
But
this was what I looked at most of every day for years. It's given me a disproportionate hatred of surface parking lots, buildings without windows, and stale colours.