[HN Gopher] The Cult of the American Lawn
___________________________________________________________________
The Cult of the American Lawn
Author : ecliptik
Score : 25 points
Date : 2025-03-21 15:38 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noemamag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noemamag.com)
| georgeburdell wrote:
| Lawn apologist here. I have one because my kids use it daily, and
| it's easy to spend 30 minutes to mow it a few times a month
| instead of maintaining countless bushes in the same space. I also
| don't use chemicals except fertilizer and a copper-based
| fungicide, so there's a decent amount of bug life.
|
| The real ecological dead zones are the fake grass "lawns", that
| are both nutrient free and heat islands, and for some reason get
| tax breaks to install.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > for some reason get tax breaks to install
|
| Isn't that reason "water"?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Really a regional thing.
|
| The home I grew up in up in the Northeast had 1 acre lot and
| not a sprinkler in sight.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We aren't getting tax breaks for drought-resistant
| landscaping in the Northeast, though.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| Yes that's ostensibly the reason, but I wouldn't get tax
| breaks for covering my lawn with plastic bags.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Well, sure, just like I don't get an EV credit for walking.
| simgt wrote:
| It really shows how poorly designed these incentives are.
| One should get a credit for not owning an ICE car, or for
| not using more than x m^3 of water a month.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yeah, there's lawns and "lawns".
|
| The perfectly manufactured, 100% single grass variety, that
| takes lots of chemicals, water, and mowing? Terrible.
|
| Grassy area that has some clover and dandelions, gets mowed 2x
| month, and doesn't need watering or chemical treatment? Fine by
| me.
|
| Personally, I'd rather have some bushes and perennials that I
| trim 2x year, add much in the Spring, and that's it. And that's
| the way yard has been going over the last 5 years - the grass
| portion is smaller every year. I might just pull the plug on
| grass this season, dig it up, add some fresh soil, and plant
| some plants.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| You can have it both ways though... A nice little grass play
| area, maybe some small soccer goals, and in the periphery of
| that some perennials, maybe some rosemary so the kids can
| pick it when helping at the kitchen? You may delimit the play
| area with a clover lawn too
| alistairSH wrote:
| You should be able to have it both ways, except there are
| neighborhoods/towns that require "though shalt have 100%
| Kentucky Bluegrass trimmed within 1.5"-2.75" inches length
| and bushes shall be aligned with building edges or property
| boundaries."
|
| Ideally, there should never be requirements to have a "well
| groomed" lawn. And incentives should be aligned to
| discourage overly manicured lawns (higher water costs,
| taxes on fertilizer, whatever else works).
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Some also substitute grass with plants like creeping thyme.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| Wouldn't the kids benefit from a tree or two instead of a
| barren wasteland of green under direct sunlight? If you do have
| a tree I guess the antilawn crowd doesn't mind you at all
| georgeburdell wrote:
| I do have one large tree, but space is limited because much
| of the lawn is over underground utilities near which you
| really shouldn't place trees
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Sounds like the problem is that the house lacks a park or
| similar area within walking distance. We have a garden here but
| there's two grass fields running along the street along with
| several play parks, a large park and a small swamp area within
| 5 minutes walking (Netherlands).
| georgeburdell wrote:
| We have 3 parks within 1km, but it's easier to just let them
| outside and play ball with minimal supervision in a safe
| enclosed space
| op00to wrote:
| My neighbor has zoysiagrass, and has someone spraypaint his
| lawn green in the winter. It's pretty hilarious. I too have
| zoysiagrass, but I'm cool with the dead look in the winter so
| that I don't worry about it in the summer when I forget to
| water.
| jmclnx wrote:
| As a non-owner, I would love to have a lawn of dandelions, but
| the owner insists on a lawn and buys a lot of chemicals to keep
| it that way.
| ravenstine wrote:
| That's a shame since dandelions aren't actually harmful to
| lawns.
| i80and wrote:
| Maybe it's growing up with Bloom County comic books, but
| dandelions to me are even beautiful and joyful
| david422 wrote:
| This is from memory, and I can't find the sources - but at one
| point I read that some company developed some new pesticides
| for lawns and as a side effect, dandelions were killed. Which
| meant the company did a PR campaign to re-brand dandelions as
| weeds... and here we are.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Simple solution is marginal water prices. Make the price curve
| steeper and steeper until water consumption decreases to desired
| levels.
|
| Convincing people to care about the future is the hard part
| though, and I have no solution for that.
| thrance wrote:
| You're just going to make lawn a privilege, and even more of a
| status symbol than it already is, and therefore more desirable.
| Just ban lawns in places where it can't grow naturally, it's
| not that hard.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The goal is to reduce water usage, not ban status symbols.
| sailfast wrote:
| This article is conflating the need for a "lawn" and what it
| means with people violating the terms and covenants they signed
| when they joined an HOA.
|
| If your HOA requires grass, you've gotta have grass, even if you
| want a garden. As someone that has had the poor fortune of being
| on an HOA board neighbors like these might say they're well
| meaning but really they're just breaking a promise and not
| willing to do the hard work to convince the HOA to amend their
| bylaws.
|
| Having a lawn can be great - it's hard to play soccer or toss a
| frisbee in a rain garden. Having a garden or letting it go
| "natural" is also cool and a lot of people do it in the US - but
| not if you've signed a piece of paper saying you will keep your
| lawn a lawn.
| jchw wrote:
| But that's just a straight-forward appeal-to-authority
| argument, and it doesn't really do anything to justify the
| existence and prevalence of the rules. Is it really a good use
| of time to go and fight each HOA _individually_? It doesn 't
| really seem like we have _time_ for that.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| <But that's just a straight-forward appeal-to-authority
| argument
|
| No, it isn't. It's a simple statement of contractual
| obligation. They signed a deed under the authority of an HOA
| so they are bound to obey the rules of the HOA. If you don't
| like that don't buy property beholden to an HOA.
| jchw wrote:
| Yes. It's a simple statement of an obligation. The critique
| is against the _existence of said obligation_.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Which obligation you entered into willingly. So really
| you're appealing to your own authority to legally bind
| yourself in contracts.
| jchw wrote:
| That isn't what is being questioned here. What we're
| calling into question the legitimacy of the agreements in
| the first place.
|
| When it brings up the story of the home owners
| unknowingly breaking their HOA agreement in the
| beginning, the point isn't that it's unreasonable to
| expect people to follow rules that they agreed to. It's
| really two things; it's that A.) They didn't even realize
| they agreed to those rules and B.) Those rules are, in
| our opinion, stupid and arguably harmful, and we don't
| have to allow them.
|
| Now you might argue, "Tough shit, their fault for
| agreeing to something without paying attention." I don't
| know if you guys happen to be homeowners, but I would
| dare you to even _try_ to enumerate the number of
| obligations you 've agreed to throughout the journey of
| buying a home. The enormous stack of paperwork you have
| to deal with is not exactly the easiest to digest,
| especially if you aren't a legal professional. It is
| _fully_ understandable that someone would fail to grasp
| what they 're getting into when they sign their HOA
| agreement, which I'm sure to many uninitiated people, is
| just another formality of home ownership. Most people are
| only aware of the practice of HOAs _because_ of the
| pushback from normal people who assume when you buy a
| house and own land you generally are allowed to do what
| you want on it subject to some fairly basic legal
| requirements. And that 's crap you have to read and
| understand in addition to hundreds of other such
| documents and contracts in your life. Cue the
| HumancentiPad episode of South Park here.
|
| And even if you _do_ know what you 're getting into, it
| might not exactly be something you _want_ to get into.
| The housing market is not always in your favor, and these
| HOAs are quite prevalent in some localities. So while it
| 's technically an agreement, it's often a begrudging one.
| People who wind up here often won't be caught by surprise
| by an HOA rule, like the case at the beginning of this
| article, but that doesn't mean they're any happier.
|
| The good news is, there is precedent here. We don't just
| let people agree to whatever they want, because the
| dynamics of some kinds of relationships are too ripe for
| abuse and negative outcomes for society. Just like how
| labor laws can restrict what employers can ask you to do,
| the law can also restrict what HOAs are allowed to
| enforce, and that's what we're after here. The rationale
| here is pretty straightforward; I don't give a shit about
| people's desire to live in neighborhoods with lawns that
| look like golf greens, but I do care about the ecological
| disaster that American lawns can be, especially depending
| on where you live.
|
| Now if you disagree with that premise, then fine, nobody
| says you have to agree with the article, and I'm not
| trying to convince anyone to either, but this line of
| argument is offensively missing the point. I promise you,
| nobody is misunderstanding how an agreement works.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| The piece of paper you are pretty much forced to sign if you
| want to live in any neighborhood at all. That's not really the
| full consent you are implying it is, most people are forced
| into joining an HOA
| ty6853 wrote:
| In my state you don't sign the hoa (covenants). Instead it is
| just something a dead guy signed 40 years ago, encumbered on
| the land for infinity*, and recorded somewhere. Maybe the
| title search will turn it up, maybe it won't, but either way
| it is enforced whether you know (or even could know) about it
| or not.
|
| I was particularly enraged that even in unpopulated desert
| wasteland ( not even roads to get there ) 9 of 10 properties
| I looked at were encumbered by this nonsense, usually by a
| dead boomer who was afraid of anything but a mansion next to
| his mobile home pig farm. Several times I was lied to by
| everyone and only discovered it during title search and only
| because I sifted through hundreds of pages of ancient scanned
| documents.
|
| It is truly a poison on the land and by design the proportion
| of encumbered land ratchets up with no way to reverse.
|
| * Theoretically the law requires them to have a way to be
| removed but clever lawyering makes it next to impossible for
| a regular person.
| neogodless wrote:
| https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/hoa-statistics
|
| > 82.4% of _new homes_ sold in 2023 were part of HOA
| communities
|
| Not sure if this is AI-generated but this _almost_
| contradicts it on the same page (though it is _constructed_
| vs _sold_.)
|
| > 64.7% of newly constructed homes were part of HOA
| communities in 2023, down 2.1% year-over-year (YoY)
|
| > 77.1 million Americans live in HOAs, condominium
| communities, or cooperatives in 2024; this number represents
| 22.7% of the 2024 total U.S. population
|
| Of course, not everyone buys _new_ homes.
|
| https://www.nahb.org/News-and-Economics/Housing-
| Economics/Na...
|
| > Key Findings about the home buyers in the 2021 AHS:
|
| > 7% of home buyers purchased a new home
| foobarian wrote:
| Interesting, wonder if new construction tends to be bulk
| construction on subdivided farmland and such, and there is
| some reason for HOAs to make sense there. Maybe it makes it
| cheaper to pay for landscaping and similar services which
| in turn makes more profit for the developer?
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Existing municipalities tend to require HOAs for new
| subdivisions because it reduces the administrative
| overhead on their end. The services a HOA provides are
| mostly things which would otherwise have to be done by
| the city.
| jerlam wrote:
| Do you have examples of what HOAs provide for the city
| when it is composed of single family homes?
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Park and tree maintenance and stormwater drainage are the
| most common. Sometimes they also take care of things like
| road maintenance, garbage service, and street sweeping.
| pandaman wrote:
| Around here the vast majority of new construction comes
| in shape of "A/B unit", a single lot with two SFHs. This
| is organized as a HOA of 2 members.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| No one is forced into joining an HOA. If you don't want to be
| bound by one then don't buy property bound by one. If there's
| property you want not bound by an HOA them's the breaks.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Ever see the movie _' War Games'?_ I'd prefer HOAs be starved,
| not encouraged
| wonder_er wrote:
| supporting HOA's is supporting a key tool supremacists used in
| the USA for a long time to enact oppression and violence on
| people of the global majority.
|
| You can keep supporting it. if we were hanging out IRL I would
| clock[0] you (unhappily, regretfully) as someone supporting
| supremacy.
|
| a belief in authority can get real dangerous, real fast.
|
| Update:
|
| [0] I mean "clock" in the "to note the flaws of" sense. Urban
| dictionary gives one definition which sounds right-enough:
|
| > used in gay vernacular especially among drag queens
|
| > to call out someone's flaws, to uncover or reveal the truth
| in a situation or one's true gender
|
| Here's a few quotes about HOAs, zoning, and policing from
| https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...
|
| > If the targets, their family members or associates wouldn't
| speak to deputies or answer questions, STAR team deputies were
| told to look for code enforcement violations like faded mailbox
| numbers, a forgotten bag of trash or overgrown grass, Rodgers
| said. "We would literally go out there and take a tape measure
| and measure the grass if somebody didn't want to cooperate with
| us," he said. Rodgers said people sometimes would fail to pay
| the fine, which would result in a warrant being issued for
| their arrest.
|
| So, the gap between HOAs and police (deputized slave patrols)
| exists only for the people that want to imagine it as existing.
|
| mountain out of a mole hill? perhaps.
| jjulius wrote:
| >You can keep supporting it. if we were hanging out IRL I
| would clock you (unhappily, regretfully) as someone
| supporting supremacy.
|
| Let me understand you - you would _assume_ that the
| individual in question _knows for certain_ how HOAs have been
| used against minority groups, and then you would _physically
| attack_ them _before_ asking them if they were even aware and
| trying to enlighten them to the issue?
|
| Edit: And at the risk of pushing HN's guidelines, I'll point
| out that this is what you've put on your personal website:
|
| >I value coherence, meaningfulness, compassion, and kindness.
|
| One of these things is sure as hell not like the other.
| Yikes. Maybe go get some fresh air, bud...
|
| Edit 2: And I say all this as someone who very much hates
| HOAs and will never own a home that is in one.
| wonder_er wrote:
| ooooh, not clock as 'hit' but clock as 'I would note this
| thing seems to be true about you, and it would lead to me
| thinking at least a little less of something about you."
|
| That thing being "you operated inside of a HOA without
| noting the easy-to-encounter truth about how HOAs
| function/have functioned."
|
| yeah, I'll update the wording in the original post.
|
| Update: Wording updated. indeed, I value the things I said
| I value, I appreciate you pointing out the other common
| ways the word 'clock' is used. I normally don't use such
| loose language.
|
| You're probably right about a walk - my co2 meter shows the
| current level in this room with an open window is 818 -
| pretty fine, but movement and sun is always nice. It's
| cloudy, but I was about to head away from my desk for the
| day anyway.
| jjulius wrote:
| Ah, fair. My apologies for assuming the meaning.
| wonder_er wrote:
| no, i think it is the right move, especially if it landed
| as such a provocative statement to dig around on the
| profile, and then THAT RESEARCH revealed such a
| contradictory impulse.
|
| There are people who live like that, and the quick social
| shaming response is not a bad one. "you said you care
| about people {here}, and you are now behaving in a
| dehumanizing way. how interesting"
|
| I simply used a word that means one thing to me, and I
| use it in spoken language often enough, but it happens to
| have an equally prominent alternative usage that means
| directly 'to hit'.
|
| No apologies needed or received. I think apologies are
| useful for some mistakes, but in some cases, if it seemed
| like you're witnessing online bullying... I say keep on
| keeping on.
|
| Me saying "i'd hit you in person if you said this" is
| straight-down-the-middle bullying. Me saying "I'd sadly
| think less of you, if you said this in person" is not
| bullying, IMO, so I say we're both right. how nice.
|
| now i wanna take my frisbee for a walk in the local park
| but it's as bit too windy for good throwing... hm.
| ty6853 wrote:
| There are a shocking number of properties with covenants that
| either disallow black people or something associated with
| slaves like cotton.
|
| Which given how unpopular that is now, goes to show that it
| is so impossible to reverse covenants you can't even remove
| wildly unpopular stuff like the exclusion of blacks.
| Thankfully such covenants are not enforceable.
| wonder_er wrote:
| yes, exactly this. I believe it rises quickly to attention,
| upon researching at all the history of this "HOA thing" in
| the USA, is that they existed purely as a legal fiction to
| better accomplish oppression of 'the other' by european
| american english-speaking peoples in the greater united
| states.
|
| Clauses like "by purchasing this property you promise to
| sell it only ever in the future to a white person" are
| sprinkled like salt across legal documents from certain
| eras.
|
| Everyone was saying the whole thing out loud.
|
| They are not enforceable, per se, today, but they still
| remain like landmines or unexploded ordinance in the
| landscape. Where there were clauses like that, that are
| currently unenforceable, something else might be close-
| enough to enforceable that it matters.
|
| I simply ask people involved with these institutions
| something like "Do you know the racist/supremacist
| underpinnings of (HOA's|zoning|road design standards) in
| America?"
|
| and usually the first half-second of their next facial
| expression correctly telegraphs how it'll go.
|
| Every industry I've worked in, I read with fascination the
| lurid writings of those who hate the industry, either as
| insiders or outsiders. That an institution in the USA is
| _soaking wet_ in supremacy, and exists purely to propagate
| the concept of 'race' into the future is so banal to me,
| it's not really a hot take, though I remember when I
| thought something like this was improbable.
|
| Anyway, HOA's are one of 'em. The hold up as ideal the
| concept of the suburb, which existed as "the alternative"
| to all things 'ethnic'.
|
| That ideal uses threats of violence to expunge all things
| 'ethnic'. Sometimes under the guise of displaying class
| conformity/'not looking poor', but, lets be honest, that's
| an anti-ethnic sentiment.
|
| It hurts to behold, all of this.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I live in suburbia, and I don't think I have ever seen either
| soccer or frisbees in any of my neighbor's lawns.
|
| I would never buy a house with an HOA. I realize that some
| places people don't have much choice, and I sympathize with
| their plight.
| underseacables wrote:
| I had a lawn and it cost money to maintain but ..I liked it. I
| liked the space it gave my kids to play, for me to play, and I
| liked the dark green grass; the area got lots of rain. The lush
| green is pleasing to the eye but I do agree that we should be as
| environmentally concious about it as we can in avoiding
| pesticides and other harmful chemicals
| r00fus wrote:
| Clover is easier to maintain, easier to setup and remains green
| longer. You might want to make your lawn at least 25% clover by
| just thrown down some seed - apparently that's what the country
| used to do in the past.
|
| It won't be "homogenous" look but IMHO I think that's even
| prettier.
| thrance wrote:
| > How did the American lawn become the site of such vicious
| disagreements? American culture embodies a zeal for individuality
| and property rights -- of the idea that people should be able to
| conduct their own affairs in their own territory without the
| neighbors or the government imposing their views and forcing
| conformity.
|
| As recent events showed, this position is purely an aesthetic one
| for most. Americans are actually very keen on dictating to others
| what they should or shouldn't do.
| keybored wrote:
| Middle class habits and whatnot get the blame for most ecological
| ills.[1] It's your car commute that is causing climate change,
| not the whole system of fossil fuel dependence.[2] It's all those
| plastic straws and plastic bags that you're using, not the
| fishing industry dumping their equipment in the Ocean. It's you
| throwing out food, not food makers being incentivized to throw
| out food in order to optimize supply for profit. It's your lawn
| using all the water which is causing a water shortage in
| California, not the farming industry growing almonds in an arid
| climate. And now it's your, oh look it's your lawn again.
|
| On the one hand you can look at America. It ain't very densely
| populated. And it takes active effort to get rid of dandelions.
| Are we really that good at mowing lawns and paving over nature?
|
| On the other hand Georgia is a big piece of land.
|
| If I were an American I would say screw it, let's just
|
| 1. Ban sickeningly green residential lawns in arid climates
|
| 2. All lawns that remain are required to have at least 1/3
| dandelion per square feet
|
| Would that help the bees and the water shortage? Maybe. But at
| least opinion-makers would stop complaining. (And move on to the
| next thing.)
|
| [1] I wrote all of this and then a Ctrl+Shift+W fatfinger killed
| it, thanks Chrome. Reminds to use a "notepad" before posting.
|
| [2] And cars play a role in that. And who made countries like
| America massively car-dependent? Joe Parkingspace who has to live
| one hour by car from work _or_ two hours by bus? (This is ill-
| informed. I'm not American so I don't know what the ratios are on
| the ground. And it will differ from Philadelphia to Vancouver,
| WA.)
| Dowwie wrote:
| https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-stupid-is-our-obsession...
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > Hartzheim identifies as a libertarian but told me she
| considered neat lawns a sort of civic virtue, which she
| acknowledged could be inconsistent with her usual suspicion of
| onerous regulations. "I generally think government should stay
| out of people's business," she said. "But we live in a city, and
| there are rules for a reason; we have to live next door to folks.
| Letting yards go willy-nilly, having mice and voles everywhere --
| that isn't something we should support."
|
| This is such a perfect encapsulation of actually-existing
| libertarianism that I would call it a mean-spirited and
| uncharitable parody if it wasn't quoting a real person. "The
| government should stay out of your business, except when I hold
| you at gunpoint until I like your lawn."
|
| (And you can't even blame this part on HOAs, this was a city
| councilor talking about a municipal regulation for lawn
| standards)
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| > "We were being bullied on our own property."
|
| Solution - Refuse to purchase property subject to an HOA. I
| realize this might not be a tenable solution for some people, and
| I find that to be a very unfortunate situation. We should really
| educate our friends, kids, neighbors on the perils of these
| often-broad and legally binding agreements that seem to be
| sneaking into real-estate contracts/deeds at an alarming rate
| nationally. If you aren't comfortable with each and every
| provision being enforced upon you, don't purchase!
|
| Regarding the grass lawn situation, there are alternatives like
| mixing in clover varieties which actually fix nitrogen (e.g.
| improve soil health) while requiring considerably less water than
| most lawn grass to survive. Here in urban Denver my wife and I
| have opted for a 100% "mini clover" lawn in both the front and
| back yards. It's already green and growing while neighboring
| yards are still dead winter brown grass. It also stays nice and
| green well into the late fall after most grass is dormant/dead.
|
| I realize this doesn't do a lot to address the biodiversity angle
| the article took on, but it's a potential alternative for those
| seeking options. If you allow it to grow a bit you'll get flowers
| that are helpful for pollinators in addition to the healthier
| soil. I can attest that after you give the clover seed 6 weeks or
| so to set roots and sprout (no walking on, keep it moist) it will
| serve you for years. We're on year 4 at our house. No regrets.
| r00fus wrote:
| We literally threw down clover seed on our barren front yard
| and it's a lush green expanse now. Like almost zero effort
| other than initial watering.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| What kind of clover?
| Evil_Saint wrote:
| It is really hard to avoid them. I think the only solution is a
| federal law allowing you to opt out of any HOAs.
| jghn wrote:
| Depends on where you live in the US
| toast0 wrote:
| Tax foreclosure generally leads to a property free and clear
| of all encumberances. It's a bit of a pain to arrange though.
| :P
|
| A federal opt out would be a huge intrusion into contract
| law, IMHO.
|
| It's pretty easy to avoid HOAs, they have to be disclosed. It
| may be hard to buy where you want to buy and avoid HOAs
| though. But my parents' house doesn't have an HOA (but does
| have pretty picky city code enforcement), and the two houses
| I've owned didn't either; although the first did have a dry
| covenant that everyone I talked to said is unenforcable and I
| found amusing. Tends to mean older lots or more rural,
| because new developments like to setup HOAs, presumably
| because the buyers of new homes don't reject them.
|
| Some sort of association is also more or less required if
| there's any form of shared responsibility, like in a condo.
| kcplate wrote:
| > It's pretty easy to avoid HOAs, they have to be
| disclosed.
|
| This is why I always cringe when my neighbors on social
| media bitch about HOA. It just floors me that there are
| people who simply do not read HOA covenants before they buy
| their homes.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| And also that this from OP may actually be a causal
| relationship for many:
|
| > It may be hard to buy where you want to buy and avoid
| HOAs though.
|
| Gotta fully accept the tradeoffs you make.
| seabird wrote:
| The natural angle is cool if you don't want to lounge around in
| your yard. The pollen, ticks, mice, raccoons, weeds, etc. are
| generally not what people are looking to deal with in
| urban/suburban living.
|
| I have a shop on a couple of acres that I let get pretty unruly
| because I don't really give a shit how it looks. After picking
| off quite a few ticks and dealing with raccoons constantly trying
| to get into the building for a while, I just started knocking
| down all the bushes and kept the grass real short. No issues
| since.
|
| Additionally, the HOA rules aren't there to stop well meaning
| homeowners who want a more natural yard, they're there to stop
| completely untamed blight. The latter case is significantly more
| common than the former and it is absolutely a problem. As much as
| it pains me to say (I think HOAs are one of the saddest, most
| pathetic parts of American life), lawn rules are reasonable at
| their core, even though the enforcement is overzealous.
| ryandrake wrote:
| A rule is itself unreasonable if it can only be made reasonable
| with selective/lax enforcement.
|
| If the HOA just wants to combat "untamed blight" then the rule
| should be about untamed blight. Don't write the rule such that
| it demands a specific species of grass, with a length
| requirement specified to the centimeter.
| jjice wrote:
| I grew up in the North East in the US and I only knew a few
| people across all the places I've lived that actually were
| interested in their lawns. Most of everyone's laws just
| "happened". I really never gave it much thought. Water comes from
| the sky and your lawn grew to the point you needed to cut it
| every two weeks or so. You had some clovers and weeds in there,
| but it was mostly grass. We'd pull weeds as kids if they were
| particularly egregious, but that was only when my mom would plant
| flowers near the house.
|
| I rent in a city now, so I have very little lawn exposure these
| days, but is this experience similar for others in the North East
| (or maybe East coast in general)?
|
| HOAs are a completely separate beast entirely. I can't imagine
| spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a home only to pay
| an additional fee for the privilege to do what someone else tells
| me. I don't care if my neighbors have a project car that's half
| built sitting in the drive way or a dead lawn.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| I wonder if HOAs would still exist the same way they do now if
| the American economy wasn't so centered around the promise of
| infinite property value growth
| foobarian wrote:
| I've been in New England a while and have the same
| experience. And for all the talk about "evil HOAs" I can't
| say I've run into such a thing here. Maybe they are more
| popular elsewhere and became a meme.
| wrp wrote:
| When Americans talk about getting rid of lawns, they generally
| assume that means allowing just sparse or natural growth over the
| same construction arrangement. I'm thinking of Tucson, Arizona
| and places around New Mexico.
|
| I think there is a much better approach. I'm lived around the
| Middle East, where most residential planning is around walls and
| courtyards. It's a wonderful use of space. I would always prefer
| a house with a courtyard over the traditional American open
| layout, lawn or no lawn.
| arbuge wrote:
| Correct. In Europe and Mexico, South America etc. this is also
| the building pattern. The walls of the house go up to the
| sidewalk and all the yard space (if any) is at the back. And
| maybe a courtyard, as you said.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| This is also common in Mexico. Spanish influence. It creates a
| private space for the residents, which I think is nice.
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| I have to assume this is entirely because American
| architectural practices are ultimately derived from England's,
| where courtyards are not particularly helpful.
|
| They make perfect sense in warm, sunny regions like the
| Mediterranean because they provide a shaded and comparatively
| cool area on hot sunny summer days.
|
| The courtyard giving shade is a negative in England since it
| seldom gets very hot and so people are actively trying to enjoy
| the sun, not hide from it. And as a double whammy a courtyard
| means more exposed walls so a home that's harder to heat in
| colder winters.
|
| Of course plenty of Americans live in places much hotter and
| sunnier than England - but their English heritage has left them
| with standard building practices unsuited to their environment.
| wonder_er wrote:
| HOA's are part of how supremacists of the day, after losing a
| tool ("state-backed discrimination, segregation, and oppression
| of ppl of the global majority") figured out how to hide the
| oppression elsewhere.
|
| The concept in american jurisprudence of 'the government is less
| likely to interfere with contracts between private parties' meant
| refusing to sell a home to a person of the global majority, while
| being illegal in some ways, is no longer illegal if it's backed
| by this fictional entity called "a home owner's association".
|
| The belief in political authority, and indeed any sort of
| authority, is sometimes hard to view as anything but a dangerous
| superstition.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| So you're saying some people enjoy a power trip.
| surfmike wrote:
| When I've lived abroad everyone (Norway, Poland, Canada...)
| almost everyone also had lawns in the suburbs. This is not an
| American-only thing.
|
| Obviously the HOA resistance to anything different is bad, but
| less than 30% of homes in the US are in a HOA. Most homes with a
| yard without an HOA still have a green lawn.
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