Interestingly, in the area of Iowa and Minnesota where I grew up, where a lot of the towns were founded just after the Civil War, the shops on main street were mostly brick storefront on the ground level, with residence above. Very few shop owners live in the apartment these days, for more than the last 50 years the apartments were rented out, usually quite cheaply.
I did have one friend that ran a shop and lived above -- it seemed great -- but he owned the building and had done a lot of modernizing of the apartment. It doesn't fit the suburban dream, though. No yard -- the green space for my friend was the county court house square across main street from his shop.
I think many older North American cities have these features
Ottawa, Canada has these too on Bank St. Toronto has many of these streets also, for example Queen West. These are generally the most vibrant neighborhoods.
The solution to having lack of backyard space is to have public parks. Montreal has this more right than any other city I’ve seen.
I did have one friend that ran a shop and lived above -- it seemed great -- but he owned the building and had done a lot of modernizing of the apartment. It doesn't fit the suburban dream, though. No yard -- the green space for my friend was the county court house square across main street from his shop.