The Shrinking of the American Lawn

This is precisely the case. I doubt cost has all that much to do with it. Times have changed, and whereas in the past having folks over might include outdoor activities, it rarely does now. There are more entertaining things to do inside the house. And you have privacy. Most lawn care is just work, with equipment that costs money. And in the states, at least, if you don't do the work, you'll get fined. The city might even send someone out to do the work for you and charge you for it. Or you might have to deal with the housing association, which regulates what you can indeed to to your yard (sometimes they are fairly strict). If the area permits, you might be able to landscape your way out of most lawncare, but alas, that itself costs a decent amount of money.

The most redeeming aspect of the lawn is that it gives space between your neighbor and yourself. With some luck of location and money, you can make it fairly private - you know, just the sort of area to sit outside in the shade with your laptop and listen to the birds at the birdfeeder.

Lawns offer a lot in return... unless you just don't like being outside. Since moving to a big city, one of the biggest things I've missed has been a back yard to run around in and hang out with my friends. At some point, I might get too old for that, but I suspect I'll enjoy reading outside for decades to come.

The reason lawns are disappearing is because people don't like being outdoors as much as they used to. They don't want to play badminton with their friends outside or read on a lawn chair by a tree. They want to stay indoors and play Clash of Clans. After a while anything not covered by a roof and closed in by four walls starts to look like "silliness".

I'm really into the whole retro '50s-60s retro suburban thing. My kids walk out the back door and play in the sandbox while I do the breakfast dishes. Most of the time they're playing with neighbors' kids because the lawns all run together in back. You can't tell me the park is just as good -- it's a couple of blocks away, and I can't watch the kids out the kitchen window. My back lawn gives a huge boost to my quality of life, and my kids'.

$25 a week isn't much cost/work. That's what it costs for two guys - one on a mower, the other on a string trimmer - for roughly 15 minutes.

Apartments don't come in 1500+ square feet, all on the ground floor.

I actually think lawns are valuable, we just need to realize that they aren't "free", especially in places where water is increasingly scarce (like most of the heavily populated parts of California).

Lawns are pretty great places to put a blanket down and have a picnic, run around and play frisbee, badminton, or soccer, and so forth. They're just thirsty, expensive, and have other environmental issues.

I remember reading an interview with a water-friendly landscape architect (sorry no cite) who was asked a question about lawns, and the question was kind of phrased in a "of course you must hate lawns" kind of way. His response was, no not really, lawns have a place, we just have to realize they're costly and shouldn't be used casually. For instance, lining a long driveway or a freeway median with a lawn that has to be constantly watered but is never walked on is probably a bad use of water and the other externalities that lawns produce (pesticides and so forth). Many of the current uses of lawns aren't a good use - but even the water-friendly landscape architect feel that there are some situations where a lawn is a justifiable use of water. We just have to stop pretending that water is "free".

A great deal of places in the states have little-to-no shared (or public) greenspace within walking distance. It isn't just wealthy suburbs, but nearly entire cities. Small towns might have one such space. Larger cities (30-50k) had a few more, most were just small patches with playground equipment. Some towns I lived in actually had public green areas with playgrounds... that had no sidewalks or safe places to walk that led to them. The houses in the areas all had nice-sized yards, but I still found this curious.

Or sometimes require you to have lawns at all (instead of other options that don't require the water).

About 10 liters of gas will see me through the mowing season in a moderately sized lot. Now, I could probably manage that decently with a push mower, and the folks out in Great Falls or Potomac on quarter-acre lots must be burning more.

Lots are eco friendly in the sense that they make very good ground cover: the dirt under my lawn is running out to silt up the Chesapeake Bay. And they are permeable: most of the rain that falls on the lawn goes into the water table rather than running off into storm sewers.

I can't speak for the rest of America, but that law does exist in at least parts of Atlanta. Most people are surprised at how green and forest-y the urban parts of Atlanta are.

In Washington, DC, at least in some parts this is the rule. The builder of the McMansion next door had to jackhammer up part of the garage pad when he discovered he was going over the ratio. Neighbors down the street bought part of a neighboring lot not for use, but to offset an expansion they anticipated into their original lot.