Lawns are arguable, but having a backyard allows one some control over an outdoor space, so they can hold BBQs, a pool, garden, hang laundry, yoga, or place for kids to play.

Like the parent commenter said, [we] can't be so certain what will provide any given person with real happiness. For me, I would hate to drive more than 30 minutes for a work commute, but if I have kids who I'd like to enroll in a certain school district, perhaps it's a tradeoff one would make.

The free-roaming birds in my yard (red tail hawks) are bad for rabbits and small dogs... :)

For me, the real reason for a yard is for my children to run around in it, to explore and play on their own without the need for planned activities or helicopter parenting.

It used to be permissible to let kids play in public parcs on their own but nowadays, that's a great way of becoming the person who writes "Home is where the bars are".

Public parks are not personal spaces to populate and use as you see fit. They are also public.

The rhetoric about free roaming cats is also only partly informed.

Firstly it is recognised that indoor cats are much more likely suffer from health issues relating to anxiety and depression. The why is not studied particularly well but it likely stems from completely destroying their ability to socialise, and restricting their roaming area (which for cats is very large). In many places keeping cats indoors is considered cruel.

Secondly, the effect of cats on the environment is completely dependent on where you are. This is because the danger of a cat comes from their predatory nature and most places - especially after the spread of humans - are lacking in active predators. Obviously there are areas where the risk posed by a non selective predator is very high; areas with endangered populations may want to encourage people not to gave cats or to regularly clip claws.

Again, as it turns out the world is a wonderfully diverse place on which homogenous rules are a bad fit.

I think I agree with that. By pre-industrial I meant that for many people where they lived and where they worked were geographically either identical or close enough (baker baked in their house, butcher slaughtered in the back yard, spinner spun in the house, serf worked at a nearby lord's land, etc.) I think there are some negative connotations simply because serious disease was untreatable and incomes were meager among other things (like power inequality and very low education).