If anyone reading this is interested in more environmentally friendly ways to maintain a lawn, look into xeriscaping. If you pick good plants it can turn out really well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping

That’s far from the only benefit. Lawns have immense recreational value especially for families with children.

Lawns do have a flood control benefit in areas with lots of rainfall or that are prone to intense rainstorms. But so would the same land left to grow wild.

Me, my dog and my two year old beg to differ that lawns are only about visuals.

If you don't have trees blocking the sun, something will grow in your yard and it will look a lot like a lawn.

Eh, I'm halfway there. I spend about 45 minutes a week, in the summer, cutting my grass. I don't use fertilizer or weed killer, so a lot of my lawn is actually clover. The benefits of this, for me are:

    * A place for my kids to play
    * Friends and family gather there
    * There are a few raised garden beds, so I get tomatoes, peas, peppers, and lettuce
    * It isolates me from the wooded area near me.  Mice and other pests generally stay over there and not in my house.

    * It isolates me from the wooded area near me.  Mice and other pests generally stay over there and not in my house.

Yes, it turns out that lawns serve an enormously practical purposes. Beyond this, they are required by code in certain places, as grasses serve to inhibit soil erosion.

The original complaint should be amended to state something like, lawns in places where lawns can't be sustained by natural means. Lawns in places like arid regions are terrible. But a good portion of the USA has a climate capable of maintaining large lawns with little more than mowing.

In these places, you can't have large gravel expanses like you can in the south west, because grasses will naturally overtake it, leaving a nasty looking, patchy mess that can't be mowed without the risk of high-speed projectiles being shot from the mower deck.

So yeah, lawns aren't going anywhere, except in places where they are wholly artificial.

It has always been a sign of wealth, i.e. no need to grow crops in front of your castle because you can afford it.