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.