Having grown up in several generic suburban developments I have always had a predisposition toward all things suburban: quaint single-family standalone houses, tree-lined streets, swimming pools in backyards, and lush green lawns. It’s how things were supposed to be. Never mind our front, side and backyard was a continually minefield of dogshit, but that sort of imperfection was indicative of the thin veneer of suburbia. It helped to feed the hunger for a greener lawn, a bigger and newer house with more dormers than the next, in a fresh development populated with people who looked and acted the same. Now all I ask is for the corner liquor store to stock some Cointreau so I can get my summer Margarita on. Through the two inch bullet-proof plexiglass the shop owner tells me its on order.
As the housing market is weakening and a number of homes sit empty with yellowing or overgrown lawns, post-foreclosure, tales of gangs and crack-heads (or meth-heads in the Midwest?) roving the streets are reported in the media as signs of a changing suburbia. Good. Should add some spice to the culture. Maybe the next Criminal Minded will come out of a Des Moines suburb.
When a neighborhood goes bad, one of the first signs is the overgrown or yellowing lawn, soon to be followed with the parking of vehicles on said lawn, or ravage dogs chained to a tree on a dusty lawn. This sign stands in stark contrast to the lush and velvety lawn held as the ideal, the standard, the crème de la crème of what a lawn should be. Home owners are judged by their ability to maintain an idyllic lawn, and any shortcomings are indicative of the home owner’s character.
A recent piece in the New Yorker, Turf Wars, and the publication chronicling the Edible Estates project focus on the history of the lawn and it's environmental and cultural impact, while suggesting alternative uses for the open or leftover space typically reserved for grass. This slowly developing shift in attitude toward the lawn is maybe the most recognizable or quickest physical representation of the forthcoming changing makeup of the traditional suburb. As suburbs become more economically and ethnically diverse, the homogenized image of what the suburb should be is likely to shift into something less recognizable and more eclectic than what many are comfortable with. As more lawns are turned over to native vegetation, or Edible Estates, the possibility of defining the suburbs as something more rich and diverse than they have been traditionally thought will become a greater possibility.
Turf War [New Yorker]
