When parking gets personal

BACK in the 1970s, you could open a garage door -- manually, of course -- and find something quite extraordinary inside: a car or two. But you wouldn't want to try that today, not without an avalanche beacon. The mountain of junk accumulated in there has exiled vehicles to the curb, and the byproduct is a boundary battle among neighbors jockeying for that ever-more-elusive urban resource: a place to park the car.

By Joe Robinson

March 20, 2008