It is ironic that one part of the government is spending money giving people incentives to rip out their lawns while another part of the government is spending a lot of money on an TV ad campaign encouraging people to go to parks.
Yesterday morning I witnessed the installation of an artificial lawn in the front yard of a house in East Pasadena. Like many artificial things it is skin crawlingly ugly. Yes it will save water in the short run and it will forever make these peoples lives a bit more soulless. Lawns are living things they breathe, they cool, they smell. Plastic lawns do none of these. And there existence is a reminder of how foolish some people can be. We don’t need a law against plastic lawns but we do need a public outcry that lets people know that “plastic lawn” is an oxymoron. And if they put one in they are the second half of the word.