Most people live in cities where land is very expensive, but rural land is cheap. So, it makes sense to do large-scale solar projects that aren't near cities at ground level, and put solar panels on roofs in cities and towns where the power is being used on-site and land is expensive.

If people are putting installing solar panels at ground level in expensive urban settings, then yeah I think that's pretty weird. (It might be an artifact of land use planning rules in some towns where people put solar panels in places where they aren't allowed to put buildings or parking lots, for whatever reason.)