I don't know about you, but I've used Google Street View in residential areas a lot, and never once for "casing".
I've used it to look up someone's address I'm going to visit and then get a view of that portion of the street so I could recognize it more easily.
I've used it when helping a friend shop for new houses, to look at some of the places that published open houses and help narrow down which ones to actually take the time to go visit.
I've used it when chatting with distance friends online to show them places familiar to me.
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Also, I'm curious about the posited "uses" of photographing residences. Besides casing.