Hat tip to Stephen Duplantier.

These two peices by Christopher Correa and Laura Vanderkam remind me that not only are lawns a destructive practice, but that many people in the US live in neighborhoods under the iron fist of homeowners associations that require lawns and lawn maintenance. Then there is the weight of custom, and peer pressure. And of course, many suburbanites, especially the higher-end ones, who – because they are trapped in a status race, and-or imposed conformity – will reject an environmental argument over an aesthetic one… they like how the lawns look, and the lawns are part of an overall landscaping scheme.

Over the cliff we run, lalalala.

Unless you own a sheep, you’re actually doing harm to the environment every time you water and cut the green patches in the front and backyard.

FULL

Diane Faulkner’s lawn was always causing her trouble. This Jacksonville, Fla., resident traveled frequently, and in her absence, her thirsty, fussy grass would go brown or otherwise run afoul of her neighborhood association’s rules. She hated returning home to a $50 fine, but the last straw was when her travels took her to rural Kenya. Immersed in local life, she’d wake up at dawn with the villagers to walk miles along a dried-up river toward a water source, then return with a few gallons for cooking and washing.

“That was their whole morning,” she says. As soon as she got on the plane back to America, she had a thought: “How many gallons of water do I waste on that stinking lawn?” And more broadly, why did she even have a lawn in the first place?

FULL