4 ms·

The sillier and more wasteful thing in my view is the front yard. The back yard is a luxury and definitely an instance of conspicuous consumption in denser subu

The sillier and more wasteful thing in my view is the front yard. The back yard is a luxury and definitely an instance of conspicuous consumption in denser suburbs and cities, but it's easy to see why people like it -- it provides an open yet semi-private space where you, your kids, or your dog can play, and also a convenient place to host a gathering with your friends. When weather permits, you see people in their back yard all the time. The front yard, however, sees much less use in most neighborhoods, at least until you're so far out in the country that you practically live on a farm -- it's rare that you'll see anybody on the front lawn unless they're mowing or landscaping it or on their way elsewhere, precisely due to its lack of privacy. The suburbs in general can, with some debate, be accused of being a result of the lack in imagination in adapting the estates of the British landed gentry to smaller lot sizes; the front yard is much less defensible against this accusation. The only practical functions of the front yard in relatively dense suburbs, such as those making up most of California, are these: - Provide an appealing botanical decoration for the front of the house. - Decrease noise from passing traffic. - Prevent passersby from looking into your windows as easily. But the puny size of front yards in these suburbs limits their effectiveness in satisfying these objectives, which would be much better served by a hedge or ivy-covered wall. These shouldn't be much more expensive than the front lawn, especially considering that you could either eliminate the front yard and expand the back yard or gain increased privacy in the front yard would make people more likely to use it.

geebee 10y ago
There is some evidence that foliage on pedestrian streets does increase a sense of well being, lower blood pressure, and so forth. There was an article a while back that showed greater health benefits to walking around trees than walking along a concrete suburban sprawl. Another thing that front yards help with is reducing the amount of rain runoff that makes its way into storm drains. This is actually becoming a big problem in SF, which has an antiquated combined storm and sewage system. http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/news-san-francisco-sewers-floods-el-nino-sfpuc-wastewater-cayuga-mission-district/Content?oid=4160430 http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/news-san-francisco-sewe... That doesn't mean lawns are needed, of course, but unfortunately a lot of my neighbors (south of 280), as well as residents in the outer sunset and a few other neighborhoods, are paving over their front yards for extra parking. I find the whole thing pretty depressing, and it is causing infrastructure problems. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Paved-over-S-F-yards-raise-concerns-4218247.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Paved-over-S-F-yards-r... http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/surfrider-un-paving-san-francisco http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/surfrider-un-pav... It's actually illegal, but this is San Francisco, so you know.
- telotortium 10y ago
  Interesting set of articles on the sewage system of SF. I do like tree-lined streets, especially on the wide streets typical of the US, but I left them out from my original list because they can easily live in the strip between the street and sidewalk (or in the sidewalk, if you don't need a strip).
fencepost 10y ago
Some of that is due to changes in how people use space over time - linked pretty closely I suspect with shifts from front porches to back decks. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was measurable variation in front yard to back yard percentages depending on whether houses are on through streets or dead-end streets, though I'm not sure where you'd go to research that.
- telotortium 10y ago
  That's a good point that I didn't consider -- while the front yard is by no means necessary (in many ways, sitting on a front porch directly facing a pedestrian street is more entertaining, although perhaps not as relaxing), a hedge or wall would defeat most of the point of the traditional front porch. I must confess a certain fondness for walls lining the street, especially covered in ivy :) Anyway, do you know of any good sources for this? I'm trying to research this now, and it seems one of the top results is this series of pages, which isn't that great, although it does list some of the causes of the decline of the front porch (automobiles and air conditioning in particular): http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am483_97/projects/cook/roots.htm http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am483_97/projects/cook/roo....
apatters 10y ago
My childhood was a lot happier and more social because our neighbors had a big front lawn we could run around and play on. It was effectively a meeting space for all the kids on our street. Instead of a front lawn our property had a dense growth of evergreen shrubs and all these excuses were used by my parents - easier to maintain, less water used etc. Our backyard was nice enough but fenced in and not social at all. If I could have had one or the other as a kid it definitely would have been a front lawn. To me this front lawn hate is all about changing demographics (families are getting rarer) and the tragic paranoia and hostility that now is so prevalent in American society--even though it is safer than ever.
- csense 10y ago
  This. - People don't have as many kids as in decades past - The "stranger danger" mentality -- which the parent post aptly described as "tragic paranoia [1] and hostility even though it is safer than ever" -- means kids aren't as free to roam the neighborhood. - Increased amounts of homework, organized activities and indoor entertainment means kids spend less time outside and have other ways to socialize [1] Children's services can take kids away from parents with minimal due process. Whether this is, on the whole, good or bad is a debate I'm not going to get into here. But I will note that sometimes the system screws up and targets well-meaning parents who give their kids too much freedom. Which leads to a chilling effect where even parents who recognize that giving the children more freedom is the rational thing for us to do as a society, it's irrational for individual parents because some idiots think otherwise, and the system sometimes listens to them, and it's just not worth the risk of having the authorities break up your family.

geebee 10y ago

There is some evidence that foliage on pedestrian streets does increase a sense of well being, lower blood pressure, and so forth. There was an article a while back that showed greater health benefits to walking around trees than walking along a concrete suburban sprawl. Another thing that front yards help with is reducing the amount of rain runoff that makes its way into storm drains. This is actually becoming a big problem in SF, which has an antiquated combined storm and sewage system. http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/news-san-francisco-sewers-floods-el-nino-sfpuc-wastewater-cayuga-mission-district/Content?oid=4160430 http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/news-san-francisco-sewe... That doesn't mean lawns are needed, of course, but unfortunately a lot of my neighbors (south of 280), as well as residents in the outer sunset and a few other neighborhoods, are paving over their front yards for extra parking. I find the whole thing pretty depressing, and it is causing infrastructure problems. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Paved-over-S-F-yards-raise-concerns-4218247.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Paved-over-S-F-yards-r... http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/surfrider-un-paving-san-francisco http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/surfrider-un-pav... It's actually illegal, but this is San Francisco, so you know.

telotortium 10y ago
Interesting set of articles on the sewage system of SF. I do like tree-lined streets, especially on the wide streets typical of the US, but I left them out from my original list because they can easily live in the strip between the street and sidewalk (or in the sidewalk, if you don't need a strip).

fencepost 10y ago

Some of that is due to changes in how people use space over time - linked pretty closely I suspect with shifts from front porches to back decks. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was measurable variation in front yard to back yard percentages depending on whether houses are on through streets or dead-end streets, though I'm not sure where you'd go to research that.

telotortium 10y ago
That's a good point that I didn't consider -- while the front yard is by no means necessary (in many ways, sitting on a front porch directly facing a pedestrian street is more entertaining, although perhaps not as relaxing), a hedge or wall would defeat most of the point of the traditional front porch. I must confess a certain fondness for walls lining the street, especially covered in ivy :) Anyway, do you know of any good sources for this? I'm trying to research this now, and it seems one of the top results is this series of pages, which isn't that great, although it does list some of the causes of the decline of the front porch (automobiles and air conditioning in particular): http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am483_97/projects/cook/roots.htm http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am483_97/projects/cook/roo....

apatters 10y ago

My childhood was a lot happier and more social because our neighbors had a big front lawn we could run around and play on. It was effectively a meeting space for all the kids on our street. Instead of a front lawn our property had a dense growth of evergreen shrubs and all these excuses were used by my parents - easier to maintain, less water used etc. Our backyard was nice enough but fenced in and not social at all. If I could have had one or the other as a kid it definitely would have been a front lawn. To me this front lawn hate is all about changing demographics (families are getting rarer) and the tragic paranoia and hostility that now is so prevalent in American society--even though it is safer than ever.

csense 10y ago
This. - People don't have as many kids as in decades past - The "stranger danger" mentality -- which the parent post aptly described as "tragic paranoia [1] and hostility even though it is safer than ever" -- means kids aren't as free to roam the neighborhood. - Increased amounts of homework, organized activities and indoor entertainment means kids spend less time outside and have other ways to socialize [1] Children's services can take kids away from parents with minimal due process. Whether this is, on the whole, good or bad is a debate I'm not going to get into here. But I will note that sometimes the system screws up and targets well-meaning parents who give their kids too much freedom. Which leads to a chilling effect where even parents who recognize that giving the children more freedom is the rational thing for us to do as a society, it's irrational for individual parents because some idiots think otherwise, and the system sometimes listens to them, and it's just not worth the risk of having the authorities break up your family.