Why Is America Obsessed with Lawns? (Michael Pollan)
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- Опубликовано: 4 сен 2018
- Michael Pollan explains how front lawns are endemic to America-and emblematic of the country's hypocrisies. “The conceit of the American suburb is that we’re all in a great park together,” Pollan says in the film. “The lawn symbolizes that continuity.” And yet, Pollan explains, despite the fact that lawns are the largest irrigated crop in the country, Americans tend to avoid using them.
"The Strange Institution of the American Lawn" was executive produced by Doug Fabrizio and RadioWest. It is part of The Atlantic Selects, an online showcase of short documentaries from independent creators, curated by The Atlantic.
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Actually lawns go back to Europe as a status symbol. It was a way of saying "I'm so well off, I don't need to grow crops on this piece of land I own"
Except America runs on debt 🤷♀️
Where could you front lawns USA style in Europe? Maybe a small one, or a car sized one ( next to the driveway), but Europeans tend to close of their yards so front yards are as usable as the back yards. (If they exist)
@@jus4795 I mean, yeah, exactly. As the OP said, it’s a sign of wealth in Europe. The average person therefore doesn’t have lawns.
@@DeathnoteBB Even wealthy people don't leave their front lawns unfenced (unless their whole property is unfenced but that is usually true in the villages not in the cities/towns/suburbs) -> so the area in front of the house is still usable and it's not a community space like in the US.
Every country runs on debt.... nation debt is financial mechanism that works to control the economy which in no way functions like the home budget of a family or the books of a business
... @@RonaldRaiden
Being non-American, I just dont understand the appeal of it aesthetically. Where I live, every house have different flowering or fruiting trees, small shrubs or bushes and flowers in the smaller front yard, with or without some kind of fencing. I just love walking around and admiring what people do with their front yards, instead of just looking at large pieces of grass.
But each to their own I suppose.
Majority of homeowners want to keep their front yards clean and crisp while keeping the grass mowed neat and green and watered is more of something we figure we must do when owning a house in the suburbs. While also many areas have HOAs where you have to keep your lawn green and cut anyway.
In the northeastern usa we have trees and gardens in our front yards. I don't understand the appeal of a flat piece of grass either. I think it is a west coast and midwest tradition.
We do have little shrubs and trees and flower beds in America. But they just frame a picture of flattened, literally castrated green.
Where do you live?
What you are saying is obviously better. You find that all over Europe. USA is just stupid.
In Kenya, we have something called a fence. You just plant a beautiful natural, kei apple fence at the front of your lawn and now you can play freely on the lawn away from prying eyes.
Having a lawn in a dessert or drought area is a sad reflection of a person's social conscience. The noise and air pollution of gas powered yard equipment does not help and why someone would spend hundreds of dollars a month to have their lawns mowed is beyond me. The maintenance alone to keep out weeds and creeping grass can be staggering. Farmers is central California have restricted water for crops, along with dead plants, while people in Californian cities and suburbs waste water on grass.
@@john-zf1yb Lawns are sterile, boring green deserts wherever they are. Why not let wild flowers grow there instead, to encourage insects and thereby help bird life.
@@john-zf1yb If you want to waste space on grass, fine, I live in Scotland and plenty of people have grass, but in a place like California grass is always just a waste of resources, besides in Scotland you aren't expected to have it perfectly manicured, you will see daisies, clover, dandelion and wild flowers like poppies growing in peoples lawns all the time, actually more attractive than a monotonous carpet of green!
I live in Southern California… A desert… And to me, it is an absolute obscenity that people have green lawns… They are wasting millions of gallons of a priceless resource, all because of vanity… I hate it…
I lived in Arizona....we had rocks ...no grass....no mowing......loved it.
People call that xeriscaping.
Sounds sad, though. No fresh green stuff, just dirt
@@DeathnoteBB it's a desert what do you expect wasting water on grass
@@orangecookie3132 You’re the one who said you loved it 🤷
Got rid of our lawn when we bought the house 5 years ago. It is now a collection of native trees and shrubs with a few flowers thrown in for good measure, all ceded to the birds and pollinators. Needs no irrigation and is green when everyone else on the block has brown finely cut straw in the summer. Oh, and no mowing.
beautiful and comfy
It‘s almost the same as diamond: useless, expensive, good looking and having actually a short history, both starting from 20th century. Time to find out if some grass seeding company is behind all this obsession.
Lets not forget how diamonds fuel slave labor and how grass fuels climate change
@@cristhianjosesamayoamartin5580 That is kinda like saying that the river fuels the flood. True but those are just symptoms of something much larger. Plus we have greener ways of keeping our lawns nice as for slave labor it is not the diamond's fault but the fault of the person who commands the slave to mine it. It is not the fault of the people who find diamonds pretty or like having something green to look at and walk on.
@@cristhianjosesamayoamartin5580
Climate change 🤦🏻♂️
1. The front lawn is what gives you some space from the street. Most people don't want traffic right next to their home. Lawns are ornamental.
2. Nobody thinks the front lawn is communal. To the contrary, people are intensely individualistic about their lawns and will become grumpy if others, even kids, use their lawns.
2. Then why do Homeowner's Association agreements have such wacky rules about lawn care?
Marlon Moncrieffe HOAs are created by developers then handed off to the home owners have you noticed the more expensive the homes the crazier the HOA is.
1. You could fence in your lawn and have a private front yard while still keeping the house back from the street.
2. If you live in a suburb and _don't_ mow your lawn, your neighbors will see it as an eyesore. They don't care about your meadow if they think it makes the community look worse.
The front yard is a weird mix of communal and private property. Of course you can be grumpy about kids running in your front lawn, but you won't call the cops on them. While you definitely would if someone was running around in your backyard. Stop being so black and white. This video brings up great points.
They also reduce the heat island effect if all the houses were right next to each other the heat island effect would also be a thing in the suburbs and your cooling bills would be much higher.
Though a garden or patch of meadow also would reduce the heat island effect.
it gives some space between the front of the house and the street and reduces the heat island effect esp if there are trees.
I think it goes back to owning land. It’s our little piece of the world.
Not really. Because if it's about owning private property, then you'd expect it to be walled off.
We can't ever really own the land. We only use it and make superficial claims to the boundaries.
If that were the reason then it would be replicated everywhere.
Lawns are a relatively a low maintenance landscaping option for most households. The thing that I find weird is, why someone would pay $250K+, just to live six foot away from their next door neighbor(s).
If you think about it though, grass requires more maintenance than the average plant. Many outdoor plants are just planted and that's it. But grass requires weekly or bi-weekly cutting.
I hate gardening and landscaping. With my basic $1,000 Craftsman riding mower, it only takes about 50 minutes out of my life to mow and weed eat the perimeter of my 1/4 acre lawn. It would be 50 minutes that I'd probably waste watching RUclips videos anyways. And, I don't have to crawl around on my hands and knees pulling weeds, hence that lawns are relatively low. maintenance.
@@danielc5205 lol low maintenance but a 1000 dollar lawn mower. Add in maintenance and repair and a busy life and you start to realize why so many Americans are asking themselves why do we have two lawns let alone one
Caleb Gallegos Acting like it takes 20 hours to cut a patch of grass
@@nicklemen It's just there to "look pretty" (although I think it looks boring to me). And requires landscaping even if it's low effort. It also creates noise pollution. Yeah, have fun listening to a few hours of loud buzzing every Saturday morning for at least half the year.
The size of lawn in American houses is equal to 20 homes in India.
Or in Japan
Density is amazing innit?
I have a food garden instead, growing beans, spices and other stuff there, neighbors hate it for reasons I don't understand and the fat kids usually break a thing here or there but at least I can get some good stuff from it.
Is it allowable to turn lawn into veggie garden by the county?
This just made me ask more questions the I was hoping to answere here. Now I'm on this weird "why the hell do we have a front yard" journey. #Whenyourealiseyouareaging #toohigh
I thought the suburbs would be quieter but geez! people love to use the lawn mower and weed wacker at 7 in the morning it's rather odd and happens everyday
Front yards are fine, but grass as it is, needing to be cut frequently is a huge waste. Native plants that don't require maintenance would be better.
I have been saying this for a while now, i plan on uprooting and redesigning my front flower bed
I feel like lawns are perfect for parts where it snows because you can use that space to pile the snow on the streets, but a place like Texas or Arizona. I don’t think a lawn could be of use.
I find American suburban front lawns beautiful, sadly you never see them in Ireland because you legally have to have a wall around your house.
Having wall are great. You dont want some stranger snooping around do ya
@@danialrafiqi9346 yeah but sometimes in places like Australia you have house then lawn then wall then lawn then road but in Ireland it’s almost always house then lawn then wall then road which is not very nice to look at
Great content!
Seems pretty simple to me. Lawns were previously seen in larger estates where the sizable stretch was actually useful/pleasant but have lost that role for the typical surbarban home. Still, folks are brought up around lawns and taught to think of them as symbols of status within local society. Because everyone has a lawn, it becomes difficult to break the trend without feeling lesser; in the case of stringent community homeowner associations, doing so may even lead to passive/active negative social consequences. And so, we value the lawn because everyone values the lawn. At it's crux, it's not any more strange than the fact we assign value to gold, diamonds, or the US dollar.
I want a research study on people who have houses that looks like a dilapidated shit heap yet feel compelled to mow the lawn.
I will plant what I want in my yard. Grass is so much effort for so little return. I could have beautiful flowers, nice trees, bushes and shrubs or even fresh fruit and veg.. Why would I invest time and money into caring for a boring plant that makes my eyes water? As a gesture to my neighbours? If they don't like flowers, trees and fruit, they can F ight off, especially if they want me to be esponsible for the care of the lawn, seems rude of my neighbours to impose upon me so much... Not giving me much freedom there.
0:43 that was beautiful
I went through several iterations. Fake grass, and rocks. The fake grass is hot and needs to be weeded and cleaned, rocks need to be weeded and small rocks get everywhere. Grass is easy mow it and water it and it looks pretty good. Of course you can go crazy but you don’t have to.
Beautiful intro
Everythig is beautiful,Never been to America
Lawn was and still a symbol of having such a free time then you are taking care of it and have such a money to invest. Most of this starts from Victorian era where lawn was all over the big palace and middle class always loved to copy the victorian/upper class./...it will be so great if all grow even one fruit tree.
I like lawns
Me too and I'm from Mexico where much people are lazy, stingy, for the care of lawns because the government give much liberty to the people (do what you want in your house) that even is harmful to themselves that many suburbs ends really horrible.
That's the only thing that I want from culture of USA to Mexico beautiful and planned suburbs, with a extension of front lawn, and some trees and flowers.
That's how I have my house with front and back yard with lawn and trees outside of my house in the front yard, and the sidewalks, cause I live in a corner house and that's perfect for me and my passion (gardening).
I suspect it was Edwin Beard Budding who ought to be credited with the invention of the middle class lawn, as it was he who invented the mechanical lawnmower in 1830. Prior to that, the lawn was the preserve of the rich as it required a lot of manual labour. The first petrol/gasoline mower was produced by Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies in 1902.
Without these, the modern suburban lawn would never have come about.
I love my st.augustine
I would keep the lawn natural let it grow. Especially in the summer when it get hot the ground wouldn't heat up and by evaporation of water can cool the local microclimate.
An bees can fly around.
Short mawn grass and lawn ugly and sterile it isn't very pleasant.
Depending on where you live (at least in the USA, I dunno about other countries) this may not be legal to do, or you would at least have to fight with your local government to be able to do it.
@@Mir_Teiwaz I find it infuriating that somebody can't just let their land go and do it's thing, the fact that you can get in legal trouble is baffling to me.
This was very well shot.
the French royalty invented the lawn in the 17e century, look at Versailles
back then most of your ansestors were European.
This is a muttering non-argument full of truisms backed by insipid "folksy" movie music (a sure indicator of a non-argument), though the headline on the Times' website promises an analysis with insight and acerbity. "The *Absurdity* of lawns," says the Times. Yeh! I agree! and?! "Lawns would seem unnatural to martians," the narrator drowsily intones. This seems to be this guy's key claim. What about the alternatives of semi-wild lawns, with wild flowers and/or rock gardens? What about the costs (in dollars) or in time (in an obsessive effort to make sure grass is always 2 inches high) and in chemicals (environmentally) in run-off? How about a real aesthetic and/or environmental and/or economic argument?
They should be used to grow food instead! Such a waste.
" GET OFF MY GRASS " haha lalala
Don't worry, aliens, I don't use my backyard either.
Huh I never thought about it but my family exclusively uses the front lawn and never the backyard even though the backyard is fenced and away from the road...what an odd observation I never noticed 😅
What occasion usually you do in the front?
We're obsessive because our HOA will fine us for having a dead lawn.
Bastards stuck a ruler on mine and sent me fine
@@TheChickenRiceBowl Sure people may not need more space, but people sure do want more space...
TheChickenRiceBowl I agree.
_that's America's grass_
Also my dad liked his lawn more than he l8ked me and my dog. Fuc7 lawns!
Lol
Basically our houses are mullets: business in the front, party in the back.
700 sqft lawn cost me 500, pave a concrete driveway will cost me 3 grand... and oh yea the world is running out of available sand needed to make concrete.
I hate this mentality since I’m a kid , I mean what a waste of time , If you don’t take much care of your grass would you regret it when you die , no because it’s not important .
Blame the HOA.
Yeah. Why? I thought this video gonna answer it. I love this channel but this was a disappointment.
I would rather see grass instead of concrete. Lol. Atleast Grass is natural. It just feels better.
monocultures are not natural:)
both concrete and castrated American suburd lawns are bad
best option is a wild lawn with flowers
White picket fences went out of style in the 60's so, the only other child/pet proofed space is the back yard.
I DON'T I like everything walled off, it's off limits, that's why I dig up so much child sized holes.
I prefer British streets. Probably because I'm British.
I love how most streets outside of the us (including brittish) have some relatively small lawns
Please respect “No Mow May” (and April!) this year! The OCD American obsession with having a “perfect” lawn is incomprehensible. It’s terrible for wildlife, pets, kids, etc., not to mention the noise pollution and small fortune spent on chemicals, equipment and services.
better a Backyard over a lawn any day
Lawns are also domination point. Great looking lawn will always set a house apart from others.
That's mentality.
It also reflects as a very poor conscience of the owner
USA be Crayyyyy craaayyyy
And a big reason why pollinators are disappearing and for the imminent collapse of our local ecosystems. The majority of those "weeds," are native plants that are invaluable to the food chain.
I'm #100.
It's stupid as hell, people end up making tons of noise all the time because they just HAVE to have a lawn.
My peace and quiet is more important than your lawn, get a hobby, or get a rake and stop being lazy
I’m more obsessed with houses and money.
This obsession will destroy us all. Only the eastern seaboard can afford to have lawns. The rest of the country is wasting water.
"Americans invented lawn" what have you been smoking??! I want it 😁✌️
Lawns are so ugly. I wish that they don't exist.
Suburbs will look so much better without them.
I would rather make a flower garden instead of these buzzcut lawns .
Front yards are great for kids. My friends and I ran up and down all the front yards when we played man hunt as kids. They are only an antisocial place for adults. Kids love front yards and I think it would be a shame to take it away from them
Why wouldn’t you just build playgrounds?
@@ramenlover1727What's controlled? playgrounds? Building playgrounds? What do you mean?
@@ramenlover1727 I don't understand. What's "it"? Can you please explain?
it's just stupid grass
The lawn is a domesticated grassland... A scream and a plea for civilization in a vast wild world of competing weeds and untamed fertility.
Poetic. Kind of meaningless and non-sequitur, but poetic.
Lawn alternatives would be..?
In the UK the lawn is paved over in many homes in order to allow cars to park there
Trees, flowers, or moving the house closer to the street to save land
In Arizona, USA ppl use rocks & gravel in designs.. It call a rock garden
No Lawn
TheChickenRiceBowl ..why pave over grass?? It's just grass lol.. I would rather be around trees and nature instead of concrete all day
I would kill myself if I had to listen to those lawn movers everyday, good thing I live in a forest
I was expecting a funny cynical video about industries lobbying their way into another part of our subconscious since ancient times.
You don't need to be Marcian, European is enough.
We have lawns so we have something to do (mow) when our wives are on the rag and being unbearable.
A beautiful lawn is an extension of who you are. It says a lot about you. A nice lawn says you care about your home and neighborhood. It also says you have mastered the time, knowledge, and resources necessary to grow and maintain a beautiful yard. A beautiful lawn is a luxury and a status symbol.
Pretty sure that is not what a martian would ask, because the wast majority of people is not American.
A Martian 🤦🏻♂️
First comment and like
ego, greed.
Cause we want you to stay off them
Excessive consumption and waste production is the subtitle of the US or A. The automobile and the lawn are the two most ugly symbols of american greed, dressed up as something beautiful. Essentially a facade of your avarice.