In the face of a drier future, that iconic piece of Americana is on its way out in Southern California.
ynetta McElroy stands outside her home on a tree-lined street in the south L.A. neighborhood of Leimert Park, where she’s lived since the 1980s.“Leimert Park was known for its beautiful lawns,” McElroy said. “No fences, and you could go to one corner and you could see just about to the next corner. It gave a community feeling. I've always loved this area. And it took a while to get a home in this area, needless to say.
But in 1948, the Supreme Court deemed those laws unconstitutional. Well-off Black families started moving in. It wasn’t a smooth transition. New residents facedThere was a lot of pride. Everyone kept up their lawn and they had their beautiful flowers and it was such a pleasant place to see and be.But by the time McElroy and her husband moved into their home in 1988, Leimert Park had become a haven for middle-class Black families.
The lawn itself has long been a symbol of achieving that white-picket-fence dream of home ownership. For generations, that’s been the case for Americans across the country.It goes back to colonial England, where a sprawling, perfectly manicured, purely aesthetic lawn was how the elite class signaled its wealth.
Then came the Industrial Revolution. Americans flocked to growing cities, which soon became heavily polluted and crowded. Those who could afford it started moving to planned communities being built on the outskirts. With the need to grow one’s own food gone, lawns replaced small family farms and food gardens and became spaces for leisure and recreation. The dream of utopic suburbia was born — the lawn its preeminent symbol.
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