[roel_v]

"All I want is an acre of suburban land"

Maybe slightly OT, but wtf do you do with an acre of land? Have horses or an orchard? 'An acre' seems like many people's ideal size, but 1/5th of an acre would already be too much work for me.

[nitrogen]

There are landscaping options that don't require a lot of maintenance, and an acre is just big enough to make a private micro-park that you can feel lost in if you have enough trees. There's also the option of growing a sizable vegetable garden for unbeatable quality fresh food.

[VLM]

Small orchard, far enough away that loud neighbors are quiet, don't have to look out my window directly into my neighbors facing window 5 feet away. Also ham radio antennas.

It does get kind of park like as per other responses. The kids can simultaneously set up the badminton court, the swing set, and the pool and still have space to run around.

It wouldn't be worth the money at $1500K/acre but at $15K/acre its pretty reasonable as an extra luxury. For the price of a couple nice gaming PC I can buy enough land to not be packed like sardine next to my neighbor, its worth it to me.

WRT maint we go low maintenance so its not bad. Perennials instead of annuals. Mulch so that it'll last and look good for five years at a time rather than fix it every year. You don't have to mow ornamental bushes and the slower growing ones only need to be pruned once or twice a year. "Stuff that grows slowly in general" requires less maint time. You don't mow herb gardens or vegetable gardens although veg gardens are a severe labor cost (like the whole rest of the yard put together scale of cost) There are old retired guys in the neighborhood who try to turn their yard into a golf course or something by working seemingly full time on gardening, I donno about those guys. If you go for a relaxed low maint design the yardwork is a decent workout, not a back breaker.

[JoeAltmaier]

220 ft square is not a lot. Take out house, garage, driveway, fences. Leaves - not much. Maybe a big garden, a couple of trees.