Don’t they also have these “neighborhood associations” that forbid them to do anything that falls out of line?
Comment on It would get old fast
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I’ll never understand why US suburbs like to utterly nuke any kind of nature around their houses and replace it with “lawns”. Like, I’d rip that stuff out and at least plant some potats and shit immediately.
gigachad@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
HOAs are indeed common in the “land of the free”.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
even without HOA. non HOA streets often also maintain a perfect lawn
I don’t get it.
hate lawn maintenance, I find that if you let it run wild and full of local wild vegetation they are so much prettier and fun to look out, look at all those butterflies and bees.
tamal3@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s just that much easier for developers to raze all plants to the ground before grading and running other heavy equipment. These are new construction and so those developers aren’t accountable to anyone, and I’m sure the local jurisdiction doesn’t care. That’s not a justification, for what it’s worth, just an explanation.
What I’ve never been sure of is why people don’t eventually realize how much nicer everything would be if they just replanted trees (or left them in the first place) but they seem to be used to suburban hell. If you drive everywhere it’s less of an issue that your environment is shit.
Sludgeyy@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
You’re assuming people who are forced to buy into the suburban hell have a choice.
If a person had a choice between a 100k house in a suburban hell or a 100k house in secluded heaven. That they pick the suburban hell.
Have you seen the housing market in the US?
It’s also funny how “Suburban” meaning has changed. It’s supposed to be non-urban.
But with these “suburban” neighborhoods in cities. It has basically became a word for a neighborhood with houses built next to each other and less about where it’s located.
Suburbs use to be an inexpensive option as opposed to urban living.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
If a person had a choice between a 100k house in a suburban hell or a 100k house in secluded heaven. That they pick the suburban hell
Because of jobs. Unless you are retired or able to work remotely, jobs are a leash that control where you can live.
Serinus@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
And even if you do work remotely, you can’t count on that lasting forever.
One of the primary reasons I actively chose the suburbs was so that I’d be able to get another job if I lost my fully remote job. After ten years, exactly that happened, and I got a job with a commute to downtown.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
Also big box stores are usually not too far away by design I’d wager. I’ve heard zoning laws caused most of the US to be a complete desert for shopping unless you have a car since everything is so centralized. Depending on the state a “secluded heaven” might very well be dozens of kilometers away from the market, right?
I can’t even imagine this… no matter where I lived so far in Germany, let it be countryside, city or at the city border, there always were small shops, kiosks and/or bakeries nearby (<1km). I can’t fathom having to drive even if I’m just craving some candy while living in what’s supposed to be a proper neighborhood.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Can confirm. I am trapped in suburbia for at least three more years.
I can’t wait to head for the hills.
tamal3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But why don’t they plant trees?? And I don’t mean the little weeping cherry that will top out at 15’ or those goddamned arborvitaes that cast no shade. Plant an oak, a maple, a willow, a sycamore.
dingus@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
So what I suspect happens is that in newer development communities, the people building them just seem to find it easier to level/bulldoze an entire plot of land to build a neighborhood. Then they just don’t feel like putting plants and trees back in out of cost and laziness.
For older neighborhoods in the US, you’ll find a lot more foliage. I love it when I go to an older neighborhood that has large trees that canopy the area. They do exist here…it’s just that they have to be a bit older. My condo complex has some wonderful tall trees and plants everywhere. It’s not a new complex though and they seem to care more about plantife than some others do. They even randomly planted a massive tree last year for some reason lol. Seemed to require some pretty big machinery to haul it and put it in lol.
MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s impossible to develop a greenfield site without scraping everything off. You have to create and get approval on water runoff management plan for any new development. That means grading everything and often these days it also means managing and impounding water on-site without dumping it all into the (overloaded) storm drain system. When there’s no grass you have to install silt fences to keep silt out of nearby streams while building. You can’t get final approval, and remove the silt fence, until there is some kind of ground cover and that basically means grass since it grows fast and is easy to apply. Even if you somehow left the trees there’s no way they’d survive the process.
Fuck McMansion developers, and fuck lawns, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a reflection of an entire system of land-use policy and not just stupidity, or whatever.
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m unsure if I’m allowed to have tomatoes growing but so far no one has said anything so places without hoa care a lot less!
flughoernchen@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
Imagine not being able to decide what you grow in your own yard. Wild.
CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
OH FUCKING GOD, YOU MEAN I’VE CONSENSUALLY AGREED TO A COMMUNITY SET OF RULES? THE FUCKING HORROR OF THIS SHIT SHOW!!!
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
If you have to agree to it to buy something as basic as a home then it isn’t truly consensual. Hell, it isn’t even truly consensual for less necessary stuff like cars (you “agree” to surveillance - arguably a necessity in less developed places), digital goods (same - also more or less necessity), games (you agree to not own dogshit) and other things. Hell, you keep “agreeing” to workplace rules supposedly “freely”, but we all know it isn’t.
There are certain basic rules everyone has to agree to (laws) to uphold society, but other than that any agreement like HOAs have to be truly optional if your argument is supposed to work. And no, just “going elsewhere” isn’t a fucking option in the current disastruous market. Especially since that nonsense appears to be so common in the US.
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The only laws I’m sure the township has is lawn height. I don’t think it says anything about gardening things. I’m glad to not be in a hoa?
knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
With lawn height you mean they heard the scientists and you need to have a couple square feet of uncut lawn, right?
Almonds@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
A lawn is generally easier to take care of than a collection of various plants and trees. First thing I do at any new home is plant a fuck ton of edible plants, and my neighbors always talk about not having the time or energy to do the same
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Pest control might be part of it.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Pests, like birds, butterflies, bees…
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I once had a distant relative react to a worried conversation about the extreme reduction of insects in nature with “but that’s great! Way less moscitos, and a clean windshield!”.
I swear to all higher beings, I never wanted to punch a stupid person more than in that moment.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
In a neighborhood like that, you’d probably end up with a fine and they’d charge you to ‘fix’ it for you.
Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
My British friend says that Americans don’t have lawns. They have grassed in areas.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
It is actually a anticommunist thing
Eq0@literature.cafe 4 weeks ago
Care to elaborate?
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I heard of that, I think it was some propaganda piece. Like “look at those poor sovjets, have to grow their own food because the state can’t provide. Meanwhile we’re so civilized and advanced”. (Interesting sidenote: The culture of huge lawns came from the UK I think, rich people in the 1800 and 1900 displayed their wealth that way).
Not saying it wasn’t like that in some places, just that it’s so unfathomably stupid. And now there are US Tiktokers talking about “lifehacks” of growing your own food, with other US Tiktokers calling people who do that libtard commies and whatnot. US culture is a disaster on life support.
I just can’t fathom why seemingly a whole class of US citizens apparently aren’t able to use their damn heads and still do this nonsense.
Khrux@ttrpg.network 4 weeks ago
Coming from the UK is correct, it was literally an artistocratic flex at having literally useless land. I read a dissertation a few years back that also linked this to a Baudrillard style simulationist desire for the upper class not to see land with any practical value immediately besides their homes because they were resistant to accept that their wealth was exercised from any real action, and instead they’d pretend it was just a truth. But beyond the lawns were forests and fields, because they had to exist.
When lawns were adopted by the bourgeoisie, who only had half an acre of property, it was already trendy to have the surrounding acres of the house be only lawn. The bourgeoisie simulation was to have the house surrounded by lawns as if it were to then give way to fields and forests, which of course did not exist, just your neighbours equally ugly plot of land.
What I never understood about all of this though, is that gardens are equally cosmetic vanity. I have fond memories of the garden of my grandmother, which has a small greenhouse and two raised vegetable beds at the back, but everything else was flower beds, a pond, a summer pavillion, a small lawn, a shed and a scattering of trees and bushes. Other than the small sections for growing vegetables, it was all entirely for vanity. But it was beautiful. Hell, the small lawn was even pretty functional as the primary place to set up chairs in the sun and play ball games.
I am British, and once this island was forest and mountains from shore to shore, with meadows and plains being rare. The lawn never made sense here, and caught on less in in the Soviet Bloc as plains become more common in nature. America is a land with far more natural plains, and the lawn is further removed from it’s original status. It’s imitating an imitation of a denial of reality, Baudrillard would have a field day.
But I did mention, in my grandmother’s garden, playing ball games on the lawn. American sport is largely built on the suburban madness that is lawns. I’m not talking about sport born in urban centers like basketball, or sports from true rural areas, which I can only assume is rednecks drink driving, if watching US shows has told me anything, but Baseball, American Football and even golf are sports made for lawns. It’s hard to detangle lawns from middle class America without stopping middle class kids play sports in their gardens.
One day they’ll add vegetable gardening to the Olympics and America will be saved, and Joseph McCarthy will be stuck in hell on his fucking lawn.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQaMr3UHOWE
OrganicMustard@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Also a chem industry lobbying to sell fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and paint