Great article and why I am growing a food forest

My house was the neighborhood playground, big lawn, no fence at the end the road. It's long outlived its usefulness. I mow and lightly weed, never water it so it's dormant most of the summer, brown and not very attractive. I've never had a good idea for an alternative. My fruit trees and vegetable garden are as much as I have time for and more than we can eat in our short harvest season.

Wow. I literally never thought of lawns this way.

I let whatever grow whatever 'weeds'. It's kept open mostly to have a place to run around. Also I teach the kids about wild edibles, bees, etc.

The original lawns were in France and England, they were developed by the aristocracy making a land grab on the public commons, a communal grazing area that had existed since Medieval times, the aristocrats fenced this area off and stole the ancestral land rights, then they planted it only in grass which was a sign of opulence because this was arable land that no longer produced crops or livestock for the citizenry. By prominently wasting the production of these lands which were central to all of the estates, the aristocracy were flaunting their wealth, the larger the lawn the larger the acreage taken out of production and the greater the status as the aristocrats were flaunting the idea that they didn't need the production from their lands. The ultimate expression of class division because not only were the aristocrats flaunting their wealth and social status but they were doing it at the expense of their subject. Little wonder the lawn is associated with status.