Lawns are not so bad east, with it's plentiful water. The real scourge is the driving. Suburbs are fundamentally more like cities than agricultural rural ares

Lawns are not so bad east, with it's plentiful water. The real scourge is the driving. Suburbs are fundamentally more like cities than agricultural rural ares in terms of the interdependence / non-self-reliance of housing units. (No, your aspirational basement workbench that isn't used to satisfy basic needs count for much.) They offer a simulacrum of rural life to, originally, white flighters, that doesn't count for anything. Giving the need for transport, and the great distance everything is from everything else, driving is unavoidable. What gets sacrificed then is the spontaneous interactions with other human beings and tiniest casual trips, as the big essential stuff saturates the road's and peoples time for traveling. It's a terrible way of life.