My wife and daughter and I were happy last August to find a small but convenient condo in a residential neighborhood.
People set up grills there in the summer, and their dogs exercise every day.
Our apartment may be cramped, but the yard makes it seem like a home. Our daughter's out there whenever the weather allows and sometimes when it doesn't, circling on her bike, burying herself in leaves, looking for bugs, splashing in the rain, holding her kitten's leash as it tries to climb a tree. We look out the window and watch her at play, and we imagine her growing up here. One trustee assured us that the condo association is unlikely to vote to kill the yard. But because of Brookline's artificially induced parking shortage and the association's increasing need for more money for upkeep, we're afraid that enough of our neighbors might opt for the lot.