Tiny Spaces between the Rowhouses - Gates, Garbage, Gardens

I’m not really sure of the difference between a rowhouse and a townhouse. But I do know there are a lot of them on Capitol Hill. We enjoyed our one acre of land in the Midwest - distinctly separate from our next door neighbors. Here, your outside walls become a part of someone else’s all the way down the block. In fact someone literally broke in to the shared wall of our son’s house during the next door neighbor renovation. You could literally see in to the next house! If not totally connected, some of the structures have a tiny pathway between the two buildings. There are generally no windows on either side. It would have been interesting to see all these places being built - one after the other. What is more interesting is to see what the owner does with that space. Usually there is either an iron or wooden fence, but sometimes garbage cans fill the space. If it’s a little bigger, a garden path may appear. It’s often hard to tell who actually owns the space - maybe it’s all shared? That would never work. So if you look hard enough you’ll see the one to three feet separation between dwellings. So if you need to get to the backyard without going through the house you might be able to squeeze through. Otherwise you’ll need to go around the entire block to get there. Talk about impractical? But many would think it is utterly charming - until you live in one.