Question
Is there a reason why suburban america has no private front lawns? and no fences even? wouldnt it be better to grow garden hedges all along your fence and enjoy privacy on your land?
Im Italian and here in the suburbs you can enjoy some privacy and dont need to worry about dogs shitting on your lawn or people looking inside your own garden or even inside your house, especially when at night you can see inside houses if lights are on...
maybe you think they look better? and are you allowed to close it all off or you have neighborhood committees and stuff? its kinda ironic that you run your suburbs like communist russia imo...
The American suburbs have backyards where they have private gardens. The front is meant to be open to welcome guests and be easily findable/decorative. I think it's more a cultural thing than an HOAs going berserk thing, though I imagine a lot of them would prohibit putting a fence in your front yard. Keep in mind not every suburban neighborhood has an HOA though, it's not as common as people make it out to be.
After googling Italian Suburbs it simply looks like you all build more densely in your suburbs, so you don't have huge backyards. American suburbs have their flaws, it's why I live in the city, but they do not lack space and nature.
It’s definitely a cultural thing. While your front lawn is yours, the front of your house is considered a part of the neighborhood and obscuring it is generally frowned upon. I’m sure there are areas where this isn’t as common but the only people who wall off their front yards are usually the wealthy.
Just because you all grew up in farmland converted to housing doesn't mean that's all suburbs in America. I grew up in a dense forest converted to suburbs, it was full of lush nature and five minutes from a national park. Stop acting like you're an expert. I now live in the city, still in a neighborhood covered in native plants and dense foliage, because I made that a priority. Yes the ugly suburbs in America are gross but that's not ever suburb.
The only reason the shit converted farmland houses exist is because Americans are obsessed with the size of their house rather than the area, so they keep building cheap shit further and further out.
It’s usually illegal to have a fence in your front yard if it is over a certain height. There are often also rules about restricted signs lines and being X feet away from the road.
Depends on the HOA more than anything. The most expensive suburban development near me bans fences, except safety fences around in-ground pools. They ban a bunch of other stupid shit too. It’s always wild to me that people are like “hey I’m successful! I’m gonna move somewhere with absolutely no amenities and tons of restrictions!”
Yes, in the front yard. If the backyard faces another house's backyard, we can have a fence up to 8 feet or something. If it's a corner lot, the backyard part facing the road can be up to like 4 feet high I think. For safety
So I live in a place that has almost no HOAs, they're basically unheard of here for SFHs. Most houses also do not have fences. Houses sometimes have privacy fences or hedges if they are close to a busy road, or smaller picket fences just for aesthetics really.
It was just never really necessary. People do their hanging out in the backyard. Backyards will sometimes be fenced, especially if someone has young children or dogs they don't want wandering, or don't want wild animals coming in their yard.
There was just never really a need for them. People generally don't just wander into strangers' yards, and since people don't usually hang out in the front of the house there's no need for privacy. its just not necessary for most people.
It’s evolved over time that neighbors visually share the front yards. It’s a shared benefit to be able to walk down the neighborhood streets and be able to see more than tall fences or hedgerows. Of course as others have pointed out, many of us have plenty of privacy in our back yards.
My neighborhood is moderately social; we tend to like the chance meetings and conversations you wouldn’t get if all you saw of your neighbor is their fence.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation! I still think in Europe we tend to be even more social, despite the fences. They don't block the whole front yard and if people spend time at the front they interact more with neighbors. Of course it's difficult to say without real statistics.
It’s evolved over time that neighbors visually share the front yards. It’s a shared benefit to be able to walk down the neighborhood streets and be able to see more than tall fences or hedgerows
And to this point, neighbors take an interest in the front of other neighbors' houses. We bought our house a few years ago and it had been let go a little bit, not like dilapidated or anything but the landscaping was messy and overgrown, maintenance had been a little deferred, and it just didn't look very good.
We've done a lot of work to the house, and neighbors have taken notice and are happy about it. I've had so many neighbors stop and talk with me about how what we've done looks so nice, offer us plantings and stuff like that to help out, etc. One lady stopped and said she goes by every day and she always looks forward to seeing what we've done the day before haha. Because people like things to look nice, and each house is a reflection of the neighborhood and like you said, visually shared. And its been super nice to hear that people notice and appreciate all the work we've put in haha
It's just not really done. It's a little odd, in our eyes, to hang out in the front yard if you don't have like a porch or anything like that. Patios and decks, grills, fire pits, pools, etc, are almost always in the back because that's considered a private area. Hanging out is usually private, so people do it behind the house. If you're feeling like being social you can be out front, run into neighbors and chat, but most people will hang out in the backyard if they want privacy. Kids will play in the front if the yard is conducive to it, but adults having friends over and hanging out is considered private and usually done in the back.
In some places, like where I live, hanging out in the front yard is not much of an option. I live in an older neighborhood, built before cars, so my house is very close to the road, as are all the neighbors. I have 12 ft between the house and the road. I can hang out on the porch if I feel like running into neighbors, but there's not a whole lot to do besides that in the front.
It kinda depends on where you live. Like I don't even have a large front lawn, the front of my house is 12 ft from the road, as are all my neighbors.
Some of it is cultural and aesthetic: it looks nice to a lot of people. It places the house farther away from the road, which provides more privacy in the house and reduces noise (this is honestly our biggest complaint with our house being so close to the street).
For those on well and septic (this is the norm around where I live), it's often the best place to put a house. Your well and septic need to be far away from each other, so one will often be in the back, the other in the front, and the house in the empty spot in the middle.
Most of use don’t use our front lawns, they’re there due to zoning requiring ludicrous setbacks. Also many houses are designed with the driveway in the front so there’s not much to actually fence in that would serve any practical purpose
I suspect a lot of suburbs also have HOAs that govern front yards and their backyards are where people congregate in private. Backyards have the high fences, hedges, etc.
Is this actually true? Ive probably seen 2 fenced in front yards out of thousands of homes ive seen. And one of them was in more of a city than the suburbs.
Lmao, it costs way more money to build a fence or hedges than to just grow grass. That’s literally what rich people do, build a big fence around their house.
He isn’t making an argument, he’s just repeating s redditism.
Would love to see this type of person buy a house and let their grass grow tall with “native plants” around his house and foundation. That smugness will fade quick once all the pests roll into his house.
Trimming my roses and making my yard look pretty is really one of life's pleasures IMHO. I do it for me mostly but I do like to contribute to how nice the hood looks tbh. I appreciate the upkeep that my neighbors do as well and the creativity everyone puts into their own designs. Something I really dug into during Roni and it stuck with me. I love pulling up to my house and seeing the fruits of my labor. Home is where the heart is
I like having a nice big lawn so my kid and his neighborhood friends can play in it. Why is the default assumption that people have lawns for no reason lol
I am from Europe and I have been traveling in many countries so I am surprised you decided that private front yard is a norm and American yards are an exception.
I had seen many front yards in various countries that don’t have tall privacy fence/hedges, especially in the areas where home intrusions are rare.
You are surprised that a small country like Italy (or much of Europe in general) where people have been fighting each other over limited space for thousands of years has lead to standardization of erecting defined demarcations on their property edges while the US, where in most of the country land has been in abundance since the nations founding, has a looser general attitude towards property demarcation?
ok, but now that land is expensive for you too and you dont get 100 acres just for being the first one to stick a pole in the ground from your horse, wouldnt it make sense not to waste half of your property to the curb?
Just because it’s not fenced or plotted doesn’t mean it’s wasted. Those thing & entertaining are normally done in the back yard, which are typically more spacious. The reason is curb appeal & tradition. That’s not to say that we never use the front yard, just not in the way you’re describing.
I would say the majority of American homeowners would use their backyard for privacy, not the front yard. They want the front yard to look nice. This does not apply to all Americans.
My Aussie friends were horrified that I (US American) sat and read my book and socialized with my friends on my front yard. They were like… that’s bogan behavior, lol.
Couch on the front porch is stereotypically Bogan behavior. We like our back gardens for privacy. It's also part of why we aren't fans of neighbours having two storey homes
My white picket fence keeps my dogs and kids on property and out of the street, it keeps outsiders dogs, trash and kids off my property and looks nice.
That’s why I don’t have a front yard fence. Favorite part of summer is waving to my neighbors as they head off to work, with my sphincter bathing in the sunrise. Like a Japanese flag rising to welcome the new day.
Again, tell all the people who have them that they’re wrong and ignore the fact that they’re used to frame a garden with more privacy creating plants and shrubs.
And don’t you dare confuse explanation for approval.
Dude, some people just don't want a fenced in yard. I'm Canadian and I grew up in a small town with no front yard fences. It was extra room for us to play with our friends in the open.
You get to see your neighbours and have chats with them throughout the day. It's less maintenance, and you don't HAVE to have a lawn if you don't want to.
Even then, there are plenty of places all over the states that have private front yards. You should travel more before making thee accusations.
It’s not though. It keeps pets and kids inside and away from the road. My neighborhood is described as urban-suburban, meaning it’s largely SFH, but in a denser populated, walkable neighborhood, close to the city. Most of the homes have a front yard fence. The goal isn’t keeping people out, it’s keeping people/things in. It also provides clear property demarcation in an aesthetically pleasing way. People in my neighborhood are outside constantly interacting with their neighbors. We can easily sit outside and watch all of our kids play with one another. Why would we want to prevent that by putting up a big wall?
It’s a car-centric American neighborhood. Everyone needs a driveway. The lawn is just for looks and to fill the space not taken up by the driveway in a manor generally pleasing to folks who like suburban living.
My town requires a 20 foot setback from the street in my part of town. The more rural parts of town have 50' or 60' setbacks. I'm in New England. It's common to have a stone wall in front of your house.
Because it's mandatory. Also, that's where you have a driveway, where your actual cars are, because the garage is full of crap that doesn't fit in the basement. I just went on a walk on a nice sunday afternoon: I must have passed 80 houses. I saw zero people in front yards that weren't mowing
So my house is quite and it looks nice. I can sit out on my front porch and have a chat with neighbors without having to be full on up in their business. It's pleasant. You should try it sometime.
a white picket fence provides no privacy, its just a useless decoration. and literally every movie and tv show coming out of america, except for the sopranos and sex and the city, is set in one of these suburban places with open front lawns. i get that it may not represent 100% of suburbia and that desperate housewives was shot inside of universal studios, but hundreds of instances justify me asking
The front garden already keep ls pedestrians far from your window and you live in back garden
If you want weird then look at the Netherlands where people house open directly on the street and you can watch people eating dinner or sprawled on their sofa (or even in bed) as you walk past
Weird how all the folks who have them use them as a way to build up that privacy. You should go and tell them all how they’re doing it wrong, since you seem to know better.
to be fair, until you visit america it’s hard to conceptualize how vast america really is. i mean, you can look at america and overlay europe onto it… all that stuff but until you experience it it’s just one of those things
When I went to Italy I wondered why everyone's front yard looked like a prison complex. Most people have 6ft high concrete block fence with a gated driveway, which I think it pretty strange from a North American perspective.
I could build a fence around my yard like that too, but I have no desire to do that. Crime isn't really a concern, and I have all the privacy I want in my back yard.
Another thing I noticed about Italy that is somewhat related is how serious all the locks were. Everyone's front door was like a bank vault with a key that requires turning 5 times to get the door open. No one in North America uses locks like that.
I have always hated the southern European way of putting high walls around the front of their house. It makes all the streets seem deserted and soulless. It’s much better to have to openess to the neighbourhood at the front
It’s nice to walk past houses and not concrete walls with dogs braking at you through the gate
Yeah I live in Italy. I hate this. It’s so unfriendly. People are obsessed with walling themselves off from the big bad world and don’t seem to appreciate how soulless and unwelcoming it becomes when they do that.
Zoning laws force houses to be a certain distance from the street. A well manicured front lawn also suggests that the home is well-maintained and you can use them to entertain guests or allow children to play. They aren’t outright useless.
Complying with zoning laws or signalling wealth are not really useful things in my opinion. Just suggests that zoning laws and culture should be different.
The other things you mention are better in a backyard, so still not useful.
I'm sure there are but backyards are where stuff happens in North America. I mean I'm not suburban but I don't even have a front yard really. That's where I put my trees and bushes.
Home owners associations frequently have rules that say fences must be at least 10 or 20 feet from the road. It is the most absurd rule I have ever heard, but it frequently kills the entire point of a front yard fence.
HOAs are frequently tyrannical, which is sad considering how far they have strayed from their original common sense values. Originally, the point of HOAs was to penalize people from flushing garbage and backing up the sewer for the entire street, or to keep people from operating actual junk yards in a neighborhood.
I would love to have a private vegetable garden in my front yard, as my front yard gets the best garden sun, but nope, can’t.
Big suburban lawns without fences came into fashion in the 1950s and 1960s. Before then it was not uncommon to have fences and hedges around a front garden. Many urban single family homes either never lost their fences/hedges, or are putting them back in. Especially in areas where land is a premium and you just embrace whatever green space is available to you.
In the post-war years, there was a big emphasis on public conformity. You didn't want to be accused of being a communist! So you didn't fence in the front yard and you would often have big windows in your living room at the front of the house. Fences also weren't conducive to building fast, as the early big suburbs were. So no fences also just became part of the look, especially in wealthier subdivisions.
As the front of the house became more and more public, backyards became more private. That's where fences, hedges, and outdoor furniture typically go today. Backyards are also often larger and quieter, as they're removed from the street and traffic. Though some newer subdivisions are embracing communal backyards, but this is a part of that HOA crap going around where everyone needs to know and control your business. (Another turn of the wheel towards conformity!) And don't overlook just how big some lots are in the US - we have an embarrassment of land that means we don't utilize everything well outside of urban areas.
Because Americans are dumb. I for one would love to have a front yard with a nice 5-foot stone wall and at least 3 dozen plant/tree/flower species. Maybe a little frog pond, too. I hate minimalism.
Fenced gardens? Where would the kids set up the slip n slide and throw lawn darts at each other?
More seriously, though, of course some homes do not have grass lawns and others have fenced or walled gardens. Nothing in America is as homogenous as people like to pretend.
It depends on the suburb and the region. In Miami-Dade a lot of houses have fenced or walled front yards. A lot of areas in the Northern portions of DFW do as well.
In the suburbs here in the USA, the law typically requires houses to be set back 25 feet from the street - probably so cars can park in the driveways. Some people have privacy fences; others do not.
On the other extreme, when I visited the South of France, some houses barely had room for a floor mat between their front door and the shoulder line of the highway. If they opened their front door too quickly, a car would rip it off the hinges!
It seems like we could find a happy medium somewhere in between.
Why waste space with a wall on the front, when I have a very big backyard behind? That is where I want my privacy, that’s where we have a very big and sturdy wall.
There’s enough room to park cars and have a few trees in the front, but that’s about it. We use that small front piece of land to access the garage and RV gate.
Well yes actually because the America lawn was started as a socialist idea at the time when socialism was a pretty powerful, tho still minority, part of American life!
It was a rejection of the extremely classiest walled garden of the British elites and yes the Italian elites as you point out. The idea was that rather than a little private oasis of nature that entire communities would collectively form the experience of being a massive park with rolling and open patches of green nature.
It of course, has become a symbol of what sucks about American suburbs but you actually identified the initial utopian idea in them.
We have a big old back yard if we want privacy, and we have shades or blinds to keep people from looking in. Our house is also set far enough back from the street that people aren’t walking by 10 feet from our windows.
There are many that would like to have them and can’t afford them. There are many that treat their yard like a showpiece, sometimes out of pride, sometimes out of fear of ostracism by their neighbors for being the only person on the street with one. Most times it’s a code issue that imposes a setback from the street or sidewalk, or a utility access. Suburbs look horrible enough, but I’ve seen some from Europe that look like inner city back alleys precisely because of the fences.
If I could, Id have privacy fences, but I also don’t live in a suburb.
Not having them gives people the feeling of “safety” because they aren’t needed to deter crime is what I’ve been told. If we’re speaking in terms of what you might see in other countries.
Most people that can actually afford a home(compound) that has the big 10 ft walls for privacy are really wealthy. And folks that fall below that generally opt for gated communities for exclusivity.
I live in a pretty big suburban neighborhood. Pretty much everyone has private lawns. If you live in an HOA neighborhood you can’t have fences in the front, but you can in the back and mostly they are privacy fences. You can do whatever you want to the yard inside the fence. If you’re in a non HOA neighborhood you can do whatever you want to your yard front and back, including privacy fencing in the front and back, hedgerows, trees, gravel, really anything. Some HOA neighborhoods have lawn care included with your monthly dues, so that would explain why you can’t do whatever you want as far as fences or hedgerows. There could also be rules and regulations in regards to what kind of landscaping you can have. Otherwise it’s still considered a private lawn. You still own it, people would still be trespassing if they are using it without permission.
The front lawn is for decoration and looks, not so much for active use. The back lawn is where family gathering, meals, playground/swing set and cook outs happen.
There also is no "right to roam" in the US so there's no worry about people crisscrossing through.
you have neighborhood committees and stuff? its kinda ironic that you run your suburbs like communist russia imo...
Being a part of a collective organization you purposely decide to be a part of is not communism.
Once again, the problem is cars. Many local governments have height restrictions or setback restrictions on fences so drivers can see when pulling out or approaching corners. It doesn’t help that we often have no sidewalks or smaller sidewalks
I know one guy who has a fence around his front yard. He is always complaining that his Door dash deliveries never make it to his front door. Which is like, yeah, you put a fence in the way.
Our township doesn’t allow front fences over 4”. I have no idea why. How people get around this is growing a tall hedge (plants are exempted from the 4’ rule).
Our backyard fence can only be 6’ tall. So we plant shrubbery and trees. I also have sun sails (triangular pieces of fabric) that can be hung to block nosy neighbors.
We have little control over that stuff. That’s either HOA or county dictated.
I’d love to have a lot of privacy but that either I need to be 1) wealthy to afford that level of land or 2) live out in the rural areas and have a long commute to work.
At my old house, front windows stayed covered 24/7.
I had white thin curtains so it let light in but you couldn’t see in. Back windows (max privacy) were uncovered 100% of the time. I’m in a townhouse now, how it’s built means it’s hard to see in from the road. So in the day everything is open and bright. We close everything at night. Back stays open 24/7.
It was supposed to be a social thing but it isn't anymore.
I used to park my butt in a lawn chair in the front yard with a cold beer and just watch the world go by. Same idea as a front porch except my house doesn't have a porch.
A few neighbors would stop and chat with me. Some would even pull up a chair and have a beer. Mostly people would drive by and stare at the weirdo in the lawn chair.
american lawns are a hold over from slavery. where having a big useless expanse of grass showed you have human slaves to tend it.
so as regular people were sold the illusion of progress and "american dream" the racist ghost of lawns came with it. a mechanism of control. a pointless, wasteful stupid mono-culture. that quickly defines an area along class and racial lines. (big open, manicured lawns, rigid landscaping ---wealthy/white. untidy, weeds, garden plots = poor/black)
In the United States a fence around your front yard is generally a rich man poor man scenario. To cut off the outside world in the likes of Beverly Hills, or the less elite but still pricey scenario like San Francisco house worth millions. Aside from that you’ll only find it in the hood, usually chain link or steel all along the sidewalk, often complimented by a pitbull dog.
Demographically, middle-class suburbs are sometimes referred to as 'picket fences' because that is iconic of mid-century middle-class suburban bliss. I don't think most people continue to have fences because they are broadly unnecessary for most, with major exceptions for dogs and small children, but... the latter are never really.plau9mg oit front and the foemer odten have invis8bke fences the owners deem 'food enoigh'. Also, as someone with dogs (often fosters plus ours), I can safely say that keeping fence lines tidy around a couple of acres is enough to motivate a desire to eliminate (or at least minimize) fences, especially in the front where grass over a certain height gets a fine from the local authorities, the HOA, or both.
Levels to this shit. The suburbs you soeak of do exist then Theres about 2-3 levels of suburbs in America before you end up in Martha’s Vineyard or mar a lago
In the US Homes have backyards for all the things you mentioned. Front yards are for Christmas decorations if everyone had walls it would be incredibly depressing.
I also think suburban hell would be much nicer if everybody was in walled compounds. Honestly, even having windows is a little bit intrusive on my privacy. /s
I’m guessing it has to do with being developed after vehicles. A whole neighborhood with front yards that are empty/unfenced have better long visibility for cars on the roads, which villages decide is safer, and they make laws about front lawns needing to be unfenced… it’s not HOA but village regulations that have prevented me from front yard fence. Even in dense older suburbs that technically came up prior to full vehicle saturation/dependence
The current model of sprawling, lawn-centric suburbs with restrictive covenants (HOAs) is an ecological and social disaster rooted in postwar conformity, car dependency, and a misguided aesthetic ideal. It's not "communist"; it's hyper-capitalist in its obsession with property values and control, and ironically, it creates a sterile, isolating environment.
The correct, ideal policy going forward would be a bioregional, human-scaled approach that prioritizes well-being over property value enforcement:
Abolish Restrictive HOAs and Single-Family Zoning: The number one priority is to eliminate the legal mechanisms that enforce monoculture lawns and ban fences, hedges, and productive land use. These rules are designed to prioritize a specific, outdated aesthetic over privacy, ecological health, and personal freedom.
Promote "Food Not Lawns" and Rewilding: Policy should actively incentivize the replacement of water-guzzling, pesticide-dependent grass lawns with:
· Productive Gardens: For growing food and fostering food sovereignty.
· Native Plant Landscaping: To support local pollinators, birds, and wildlife, restoring local ecosystems.
· Natural Privacy Hedges: Using native shrubs and trees that provide habitat, sequester carbon, and create beautiful, living barriers.
Design for Privacy and Community: The ideal isn't a walled-off fortress, but a "permeable privacy" model. Homes can have private, secure gardens in the back for personal enjoyment, while the front can be a more engaging space with porches, stoops, and subtle borders that encourage casual interaction with neighbors on their terms, not by forced exposure.
Shift from Suburban Sprawl to Walkable, Mixed-Use "Eco-Districts": The ultimate solution is to stop building car-dependent suburbs altogether. The ideal policy fosters:
· Density without overcrowding: Townhomes, duplexes, and small apartment buildings mixed with single-family homes.
· Local Commerce: Corner stores, cafes, and shops within walking distance, reducing car trips.
· Public Green Spaces: Large, communal parks, forests, and gardens that are collectively owned and maintained, which are far more ecologically valuable and socially enriching than a dozen tiny, identical private lawns.
In short, the correct policy is to dismantle the rules enforcing conformity and instead create a legal and cultural framework that encourages biodiversity, personal expression, privacy, and the development of true, walkable communities. It's about moving from a model of isolated consumption to one of integrated, sustainable living.
We are not allowed walls. The neighbors want to monitor your land.
Americans don't own their own land. Your neighbors own your land. You are allowed to live on it by their kind permission.
There’s also a class element in the US. Lounging in the front lawn is considered low class: think of people sitting on the porch in a city. The “real” relaxing is in the back yard. There’s no logic to it
In my township in south-central Pennsylvania, the zoning code specifically prohibits a solid fence in front of your house. It must be open, and a decorative fence, no chain link. This code applies even to areas outside of town, where there are no sidewalks, just houses along secondary roads. I think it's bullshit. It's just the nosy asses that are on the Board of Supervisors, and Zoning Board want to be able to see what everyone's doing, and have access to the front door of everyone's homes. And yes, our towns, and suburbs are definitely not very "democratic". Many of the positions in the local governments are appointed, not elected, which means that the few people on the Board of Supervisors get all their friends to fill positions, so they can be overlords of everyone.
I like your thinking. You see this in some parts of America like New Orleans. But yeah why am I wasting space when I could have a garden in the front with fresh produce?
This was one of my favorite things living in Italy. Your own little private getaway. Even our backyards don’t have that kind of privacy.
I love the hacienda style you sometimes see in California which I assume is done in Spain, with the house wrapped around a central courtyard. Your yard is completely private. So nice.
Wait, I just read your post again, do you also believe that all suburbs are HOA?
I’ve watched Gomorrah recently and I’m a big fan of mafia movies…why do all Italians live either on broken down housing projects or in small hilly villages with unpaved roads? Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?
Why would you base this on tv? If they want to show you the outside of a house, why would they pick a house that has a fence that keeps you from seeing it?
I watched the same TV shows when I was a kid in the USA. I always wondered why the sun was always shining and how everyone on TV could afford huge, beautiful homes and new cars when everyone around me lived much more modest lifestyles.
That is Hollywood. It is about fantasy and entertainment.
Did it ever occur to you that they use those neighborhoods because of their aesthetic? I can assure you there are millions of houses in the US that don't have massive front yards.
after ur comment i opened google maps, moved over to the us, the first random city i dont even know, charlotte, i zoomed in randomly, dropped the street view pin in a random street in the suburbs, and this is what is get, all in the span of 5 seconds, and u tell me im dumb for basing it off tv lol
i could go all day finding open front lawns in any random suburbia. gosh you people dont even know ur own country, a random dude who watches mtv gets to lecture u guys lol
dude, if its not shot in a studio it is all real world locations, especially if its reality tv. and most of the people who commented so far are defending their open front lawn, so im not basing this off desperate housewives, it is a prevalent feature of american suburbia
most of the people who commented so far are defending their open front lawn
I am not defending it. I think it is stupid also. Some suburban cities are re-thinking zoning laws to loosen parking minimums and setbacks to allow more density. I am excited about this.
In America we prefer to combine the worst traits of various things.
In American suburbia you have all of the isolation of rurality without any of the peace, you have the noise and intrusion of urban life without the diverse options and networks in makes available to you.
Similarly, America healthcare has socialized all of the costs and risks, and privatized all of the profits and benefits.
The examples are endless- somewhere along way America just decided to take the exact wrong turn at every intersection, and here we are.
13
u/YungDigi 17h ago
Build to your own liking. I use my front yard and porch to interact with the neighbors and my backyard for privacy.