alt Hacker NewsLawns are for much more than just flexing. It's an outdoor part of your property which is flat and open enough to use for various activities and purposes. I don't know where people get such a cynical idea that this is THE reason anyone has lawns.
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Wouldn't a non-grassy flat and open area serve the same purpose?
One set of my grandparents had an expansive, well-cared-for yard with a swing, arches with climbing plants, secret little gravel paths through the trees lined with mosaic tiles featuring the likenesses of their grandchildren, a picnic table, a patio with a barbecue, and so on. I think if you want to have a yard like that, it is a fine hobby. But most people do not. Most people just have a grass rectangle that is a liability. My father has lived in the same house for 15 years and has never used the back yard except as throughfare and has never used the front yard for anything. You can't even see it yard from outside because of an eight-foot-tall fence. All he does is mow it - what's the point of that? It's pure liability. And I think this is how most people's yards are. And that's silly.
I've lived in a few row houses with fully paved outdoor areas. I don't really see the point of that either, but at least it doesn't require regular maintenance so it only has to be occasionally useful to come out ahead.
Yeah this is all very regional too. Row houses in London and brownstones in New York or whatever won’t have front lawns as a function of density, but may have back yards or gardens, which may or may not be a function of producing your own food, which is all tied up in different experiences of war, while certainly countryside estates are for form more than function, while post war housing in the midwestern US was in part a build-on-your-lot market with houses literally ordered from a Sears catalog…
There’s definitely more to the story and there are myriad factors.