Transporting the British lifestyle to New World included planting of grass. Lawns in early America were kept short by hand scythes or grazing. The modern lawn appeared with the creation of the American suburb in the mid-1800s. By 1870s, winding streets and continuous front lawns helped to define a still-typical suburb. Basically, what this industry deals with is the adaptation of intensive agricultural monoculture practices to our doorstep.
Lawns replace native habitats, and so suburbs are less biodiverse than other areas.
Ideally, one would want to use a narrow-spectrum pesticide that killed only the pest and no beneficial organisms, would break down into nontoxic byproducts rapidly, and would stay only in the sprayed field and not spread. No one pesticide is perfect in all of these considerations.