It’s an issue of low density. Having single-family houses spread apart with lawns necessarily lowers the viability of methods other than driving because e.g. you have to walk farther to get to destinations, there are fewer riders per mile along the transit line, etc.
Whether you build a single-family house with a yard or an apartment building on a lot absolutely impacts density. Hell, even among single-family houses, whether the minimum lot size is 9000 square feet or two acres (real zoning categories on my city, BTW) absolutely impacts density.
You just keep insisting on missing the point, don’t you? This thread is not actually about grass vs. other plants with density held equal, and never was.
lawns are shit and they were actually a tool for colonialism. they quite literally came in fashion because rich people in europe were flexin with their wealth because they could spend their land and work force for lawn that looked pretty and contributed for nothing. they even took those same lawn species for america so keeo that same flexing going on.
fuck lawns. Go actually diverse meadow plants that bugs need!
also lawns are insanely unecofriendly despite being plants.
But there’s also water quality and flooding issues associated with using all available land for building.
Grass and dirt absorb water. Rooftops and concrete don’t. 1-inch of rain on an acre of grass will be absorbed. Replace that grass with impervious cover and you’ve got an extra 27,000 gallons of water, or about 2 swimming pool’s worth of runoff.
the only good lawn is a flood management lawn, there’s two notable ones in my town and they literally turn into marshes when it’s been raining a lot or the water level is high, and without them entire areas would flood.
Grass has an extremely low runoff coefficient. The water absorption is almost on par with impervious surfaces. This is because the root system of most turf/gras systems is only a few inches deep. On the other hand native grasses, fescues, and trees are excellent for water infiltration! Rain gardens are also good choices as they promote pollinators. I’m a landscape architect --happy to answer any questions.
Errata: meant to say high runoff coefficient --not low.
Planning yes. But we fight over impervious cover over the aquifer recharge zone and building retaining walls in in conservation and drainage easements.
My backyard slopes towards the house and during heavy rains the cellar floods which, okay, it’s a cellar with limestone block walls, it’s not supposed to be waterproof, but… is there anything I can do to make this happen less often?
Yes. There’s several possible approaches to redirecting storm water: You could build a french drain or you could regrade the slopes to redirect the flow around the house. I don’t want to give too specific recommendations because I don’t have a survey or am familiar with the exact conditions of your lot. I don’t think infiltration is an option in your case though. The goal is to get the water away.
Thanks. I figured regrading was best but I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s been less of a problem since we started putting up raised garden beds but I thought, hey, might as well ask.
I was about to say golf courses, but then I realized that people actually use golf courses to play golf, which is more then the average lawn is used for.
Hey that’s not true…. Lawns get used all the time for… err…… proving to neighbouring households that the Lawn Owner is rich enough to grow something useless there? Idk tbh
I have a small lot (0.2 acres) with a small lawn, my kids play on it all of the time. It’s the only reason I haven’t gotten rid of it all and replaced it with native species.
When I was a kid, we used our lawn, our friends lawns, and neighbor’s lawns constantly. After school, we would be out there playing games like tag, red light, football, Frisbee, or some other excuse for running around outside, until we gad to go on and have dinner and then work on homework.
Having those yards kept us kids sane, and probably our parents too, as we had places to burn off energy, and get out of their hair for awhile.
If there isn’t anywhere else to play but your own lawn, then your area has inadequate infrastructure. There should be multiple parks within a short, safe walk along with other things for kids to do that don’t require everyone having their own dedicated lawns.
It’s not like children could use a lawn to play on or anything…
And our Public transit system is totally ready for nobody to have cars… Our GDP totally won’t fall to 10% is what it was before once nobody can go to work.
First of all, this is about how suburbs are bad, not about how rural areas are bad. Nobody’s saying everybody should live only in cities.
Second, the issue isn’t one of “mentality;” it’s one of economics. It isn’t that you’re wrong for wanting to live in a house with a yard; it’s that you aren’t entitled to have the rest of society subsidize your choice.
Suburbanites are welfare queens benefiting from the most massive Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and it has to stop before we bankrupt ourselves (let alone destroy ourselves via suburbs-induced climate change).
Nah man, the ones I’ve been at have been quite effectively planned. Every square meter costs. I think it’s quite silly to equate datacenters to lawns. Datacenters are better for the environment and and provide stability which is important for national safety.
You’ve described 2% of datacenters, the other 98% are nothing like that are have nothing to do with national safety and are absolutely not better for the environment because they are unnecessary in the first place.
Care to share your experience? I work for a MSP and we serve private companies and governmental bodies. These companies exist because people need their services, if noone needed or wanted those services the companies wouldn’t be profitable. Disruptions to their services show up on news and cost a great deal to the society.
That is where national safety comes in to the picture. If you don’t agree imma head out.
Unrelated to the actual topic, but is anyone else starting to find this “my brother in Christ” meme really irritating? I ain’t your brother, and I don’t give a fuck about your Christ.
Nah I love it. That's the bit, using it so nonchalantly sort of diminishes the expression. I don't think anyone using the meme gives a fuck about a Christ either
It’s just a phrase. Like “how are you” as a greeting. Nobody who say how are you wants to know how you are or gives a shit about any answer other than “fine thanks! how are you”. Just treat MBIC the same way, maybe invent your own responses, my sister in Buddha?
My Brother in Christ is a recaption meme trend using “my brother in Christ” as a slang term put on top of words, most often replacing the N-word, in other meme captions to enhance the original meaning by adding a flair of polite Christianity for humorous effect.
What, do those plebs not have driveways or garages for their cars? I never have to park on the street, since I just drive up my driveway across my 1/2 acre lawn. It’s quite nice having that “wasted” use of land for my kids to play on whenever they want.
Your kids play on your lawn? Mine don’t, they much prefer the park, that’s why I’m going full tilt into meadowizing my lawn.
It’s also worth noting that there’s almost no kids on our block, despite it being a pretty new neighborhood, because we’re one of a very small handful of younger families that were fortunate enough that they could actually afford to buy a home. Almost everyone else in the neighborhood is older, and their kids have already grown up, because that’s largely the demographic that could afford these houses. It makes me sad for my kids a lot, because there’s really not much to do outside except look at everyone else’s identical homes and kick rocks. We could be doing a lot better than this as a society.
Gotta decide between a small risk of abduction or some risk of stealing a fun part of childhood.
Surprised to find a ~quarter of abductions are by strangers :o Mostly relatives for sure but 25% is high.
I’d like to think I’d YOLO it and the odds would play in my favor 😬 Same as walking to school or something… car could hit a family walking, but probablyyyy won’t.
Maybe in our Big Brother future abduction will be almost impossible due to iris scanners or thought police or something draconian. Yayy
It can be both…doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The issue is 99% of suburbia is lawn, and only like 5% of it is used out of the year.
There is an egregious imbalance that needs remediation because the lawns are destroying ecosystems, pollinators and contributing to toxic runoff (rainwater isn’t absorbed by lawns due to their shallow roots). The rainwater pulls all the fertilizer & roundup into the storm water discharge and feeds it into rivers and lakes (hence the algal bloom that is overtaking many lakes in the US).
Contrary to what Fox News would have you believe, snatching kinds up out of parks is a really, really rare thing, especially if the park is busy. Bad guys generally don’t like to be seen doing bad guy shit, and it’s kinda hard not to be seen at a busy public park.
A little less seriously, I did grow up in a rural area and had a forest as my back yard. I really wish more children got to grow up around a wild space like that, rather than deeply managed and heavily sanitized parks and back yards.
I’m not saying more can’t be done and we’ll see how the past few years affect this, but if there really aren’t any gen z’ers on your block you’re an outlier.
Not sure about the US, but here in Australia many golf courses are built on flood plains where regular development would not be permitted. Still not nearly as beneficial as native bushland would be, but not as much of a “waste of space” as many tend to believe.
Eh I like to take the George Carlin approach to golf courses they’re large swaths of land that take a lot of chemicals, and water to maintain by cheap labor hidden just far enough away so rich fucks can hit a tiny white ball with a metal stick into a plastic cup.
I’ll agree that overall golf courses aren’t the source of the problems, but they’re the distillation of how our society is structured to how so many resources and exploited labor go into maintaining the wealthy’s way of life.
Golf isn’t really that elitist these days. There are public courses everywhere, games off hours are $20, and equipment can be had for a few hundred dollars. It’s pretty middle class compared to the actual elitist sports.
few hundred dollars compared like near $0-$100 for a lot of sports with free courts/fields at parks (basketball, volleyball, soccer, and flag football are like $20 for a whole group to be able to play for as long as a ball lasts, sports like baseball and tennis require individuals to have some equipment but far less than golf costs), that’s still kinda a lot, especially as a basic cost to enter. OTOH… I have more than one bike and I spent nearly $3K on one solely for hobby use when I was making roughly minimum wage, so its far from elitist.
![[meme] Lawns and car storage — name a more wasteful use of land](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c6a93d55-ab0b-4275-bd92-43931e7b7d77.jpeg){kind=link}
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