The Lawn/Micheal Pollan

I was looking through my notes for another class and saw a quotation given out in the context of the pastoral/urban pastoral:

"Lawns are purged of sex and death. No wonder Americans like them so much."

From Michael Pollan's book Why Mow?. (excerpt at http://www.history.vt.edu/Barrow/Hist3144/readings/pollan.html)

I know we are almost at the end of our discussions, but I think it would have been interesting to discuss the lawn/garden and how it can be both liberating and confining. It also would have been interesting to add the lawn into our discussions of the artifice of the suburb--another space where aesthetic overrides utility (a rigidly maintained lawn as a space where the suburbanite can enjoy nature is acceptable while allowing the lawn to grow naturally and "out of control" is shunned and even made illegal).

There is also some interesting stuff about American's "democratized" the lawn (in comparison to the enormous lawns of English estates) by breaking them up into surburan sized, supposedly affordable plots.

Anyway, this book/selection from it may be a good source for anyone writing a paper/memoir focused on suburbs--and even if you aren't its a pretty interesting read.