[jmbwell]

Yeah this is all very regional too. Row houses in London and brownstones in New York or whatever won’t have front lawns as a function of density, but may have back yards or gardens, which may or may not be a function of producing your own food, which is all tied up in different experiences of war, while certainly countryside estates are for form more than function, while post war housing in the midwestern US was in part a build-on-your-lot market with houses literally ordered from a Sears catalog…

There’s definitely more to the story and there are myriad factors.

[nly]

I live in a London terrace, originally built circa 1900.

There's plenty of evidence the rear gardens were used for growing food and drying laundry back then

Children would also play there where they could be seen from the kitchen (which was always in the rear), rather than playing in the road (as much)

Rear gardens also served as a space where you would converse with your neighbour. Typically fences between neighbours were low and wire (tall 6ft wooden fences came later)

The other thing is the only toilet in a 4 bedroom property would also be out there, as an outdoor WC, accessible from outside

I doubt much read space was reserved for lawn back then

[throw0101a]

> but may have back yards or gardens, which may or may not be a function of producing your own food, which is all tied up in different experiences of war

The neighbourhood of "Cabbagetown" in Toronto is so-named because yards were not used for 'ornamental' plants:

> Cabbagetown's name derives from the Irish immigrants who moved to the neighbourhood beginning in the late 1840s, said to have been so poor that they grew cabbage in their front yards.[2] Canadian writer Hugh Garner's novel, Cabbagetown, depicted life in the neighbourhood during the Great Depression.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbagetown,_Toronto

[jyounker]

Sears stopped making homes in 1942. They were strictly pre-WWII.