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drvolts's profile
David Roberts
David Roberts
David Roberts
@drvolts

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David Roberts

@drvolts

I run a newsletter called Volts, about clean energy & politics. Subscribe & join the community at http://volts.wtf !

Seattle, WA
volts.wtf
Joined March 2009

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    David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

    You'd have trouble finding a more apt symbol for American dysfunctions than the lawn. Replaces diversity with monocrop that requires poisons. Utterly unproductive waste of land. Separates the public into isolated units. Ugly. Etc. etc.https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-american-obsession-with-lawns …

    11:04 AM - 23 Mar 2021
    • 454 Retweets
    • 1,958 Likes
    • Ann Turner jason deer Amos Ben-Meir Kai Keykeeper Stoked to be space dust ALTR4332 Colin Bean Delightingale Thomas
    85 replies 454 retweets 1,958 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        All right, the actual news today is too depressing to contemplate & I don't feel like doing Real Work, so I'm gonna yell more about lawns on here. You've been warned -- mute if necessary. So, let's talk about the absolute tragedy of 20th century US land use.

        6 replies 18 retweets 273 likes
        Show this thread
      3. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        For most of ... well, history, people lived in settlements, in close proximity, sharing public spaces & facilities. In post-war America, we decided to go a different way. We decided to chip away, erode, & eventually all but banish public space. But the thing is ...

        2 replies 17 retweets 192 likes
        Show this thread
      4. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        ... public spaces & facilities provide lots of useful services! If you're going to get rid of them, then each individual homeowner basically has to recreate them. Replace public parks with lawns & play structures. Replace public festivals/gatherings with backyard BBQs.

        3 replies 25 retweets 232 likes
        Show this thread
      5. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        And so on. The idea was: you don't need a public. As an American capitalist consumer, you can recreate everything you need about it on your own private estate. (That's where "lawns" originated -- giant rich-people estates.) Your nuclear family is self-contained, self-sustaining.

        3 replies 27 retweets 242 likes
        Show this thread
      6. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        Two important things to add about this: one, it was not organic, a simple response to the unique character & demands of Americans. It was driven by business interests -- road builders, home builders, chain-stores eager to sell individual BBQs to every single suburbanite.

        5 replies 15 retweets 233 likes
        Show this thread
      7. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        Second & most importantly: it was driven by racism. The point of escaping the public & moving everything behind private property lines was, though it created a wan, empty substitute for the public, *at least you could exclude black people*.

        3 replies 43 retweets 273 likes
        Show this thread
      8. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        This is what @hmcghee's whole (excellent) book is about. Her central parable is about communities draining their public pools rather than integrate them. White Americans basically chose to destroy the public realm rather than share it.

        1 reply 60 retweets 356 likes
        Show this thread
      9. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        The results obviously hurt the excluded minorities, but *they also hurt the white people*. When you move the public into private spaces, you get inequality. Not everyone can afford their own pool. Most people just lost access to swimming.

        3 replies 16 retweets 229 likes
        Show this thread
      10. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        Most people ended up in suburbs with shitty private simulacra of public spaces & services -- and it's been going on so long they don't even remember what they've lost. They don't know there's another way. They don't know that there can even BE a robust public.

        3 replies 22 retweets 280 likes
        Show this thread
      11. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        Which brings us back to the lawn. You lost public spaces, where people can gather & encounter one another & learn to live together & form actual communities. In exchange, you got this: that weedy, labor-intensive brown patch in front of your house, which is empty 99% of the time.

        4 replies 17 retweets 242 likes
        Show this thread
      12. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        Thanks to capitalism & racism, we traded the public for the private, thus ensuring massive inequality, atomization, loneliness, isolation, declining trust in public institutions, & a whole generation of suburban men who need militia cosplay to feel like a part of something.

        3 replies 55 retweets 288 likes
        Show this thread
      13. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        And to make it work, we covered everything in pavement & made daily life utterly dependent on 2-ton machines which poison & kill tens of thousands of us every year -- machines to which we've developed hostage-style attachment.

        2 replies 15 retweets 287 likes
        Show this thread
      14. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 23

        In conclusion, fuck lawns, thank you for coming to my ted talk. </fin>

        20 replies 32 retweets 460 likes
        Show this thread
      15. David Roberts‏ @drvolts Mar 24

        If you enjoyed this twitter rant, click on over and read the full blog rant version!https://www.volts.wtf/p/a-rant-about-lawns-in-america …

        4 replies 13 retweets 47 likes
        Show this thread
      16. End of conversation

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