20,000,000 acres are planted in residential lawns. Gasoline powered lawn mowers are a noisy and harmful way to cut your lawn. The prominence of these mowers in suburbia is not just a problem of suburbanite's blatant ignorance of environmental problems but also a consequence of lawn culture and lawn worship. I think that if a truly rational person were to see a supposedly neglected lawn they would not remark about how the owner of the lawn was letting the neighborhood down but would rather say that the owner of the lawn knew what was of real value in their life, and knew of better things to spend their time and money on instead of grass. The lawn does have a certain rational appeal.
Children can play on it.
Lawns also provide a monochromatic blanket of green. I am sure that this has its appeal in suburbia where too much excitement may not be good for the suburbanites. Imagine house after house with natural, healthy, and wild yards teaming with life. There would be an increase in animal life, the air would be cleaner, the ground would be free of harmful chemicals, fresh water would be conserved and afternoons and weekends would be free of the noise pollution currently generated by lawn mowers. Suburbanites would not have to make drastic changes to become more environmentally friendly in regard to their lawns.