Traditional Neighborhood Developments are designed to accommodate the automobile. Unlike many suburbs, in TNDs the garages are tucked in back, accessible from alleys or lanes, as they often were in the earlier neighborhoods. In a true TND, you won't see gaping garage doors lining the streets. These can range from pocket-size playgrounds to large parks and nature preserves. The higher density of TNDs also helps to reduce suburban sprawl as well as the traffic and infrastructure problems that come with it.
Some people worry that the increased density can reduce privacy.
But thoughtful placement of windows and careful siting of each house in relation to its neighbors minimizes the problem. In addition, garages, storage buildings, fences, hedges, and walls can be used to create small, but very private, rear gardens. At first, some developers dismissed TNDs as a nostalgic attempt to relive the past. In a way that may be true, but they've proved that many people want to regain that feeling of community that suburbia didn't offer. The early proponents of TNDs such as Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Robert Davis, Vince Graham, and Henry Turley have done work across the South and around the country to educate builders and developers about the possibilities of Traditional Neighborhood Developments.