[potato3732842]

This. Short grass around your structure increases the difficulty of rodent ingress. Keeping dead leaves raked and swept away reduces mosquito habitat. Sure you can put other plants there but the maintenance burden of them is going to be higher and depending on your roof and water/snow situation you might just wind up fighting a continuous battle against their destruction. In most of North America a lawn is simply the lowest maintenance way to keep nature at bay.

[jvanderbot]

Also ticks.

My kids love to run around my backyard, and I keep it mowed and trimmed for them to do so.

The iconoclasm runs deep in techno-optimists, but some things stick around for a reason.

[jerlam]

Backyards are different than frontyards. Your backyard is considered your private space and you can put a locked fence around it, store your stuff in a shed, put in a swimming pool, etc. You are more restricted with a front yard.

If I had the choice and I was forced to allocate, I would choose 100% backyard and 0% frontyard.

[bryanlarsen]

In my experience, urban parks do a much better job of this than backyards do. Urban density means more neighbors, and parks with other kids are much more appealing than backyards without.

[jvanderbot]

Probably true - when I move to a dense urban area where a park makes more sense I will definitely take my kids there!