Maggie Slepian at Longreads:
In the beginning, this was a field. It was also riparian zones and shrubland, deciduous forest, and grassland. Long before I-90 bisected the valley and four-lane arteries divided neighborhoods into a sprawling suburban grid, this valley was a high-traffic wildlife corridor where elk, pronghorn, wolves, and hundreds of bird species moved unencumbered between the mountain ranges. Today, a checkerboard of subdivisions crosses east to west, and the remaining grasslands are buried each day under reeking asphalt and rolls of turfgrass.
The wild green of the valley has been replaced with monotonous turfgrass squares that have changed little in appearance since the 18th century, when American landowners first tried to mimic the manicured grounds of English aristocracy. The lawn as we know it is a direct result of these manufactured social standards, which Virginia Scott Jenkins calls “examples of conspicuous consumption” in her book The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession. A tidy green carpet in front of each house established a clear boundary between well-off homeowners and those without the resources to maintain their property.
Yet, monoculture lawns affect us more than their serene uniformity suggests.
More here.
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