They really do have a lot of odd rules and personal regulations for a supposedly free country

The answer to all questions is racism. We don’t have public transportation because it became illegal to forbid African Americans access, we don’t have public parks and services, because you can no longer have ‘‘whites only’’ signs up, we don’t have stores in these areas because you can’t stop immigrants from owning stores that whites see as ‘beneath them’ to work in, farming your own yard is trashy, because slaves were only allowed to farm food for themselves in small plots right next to the shacks they were allowed to sleep in, and why do we have remote single housing areas you can only access with cars that are over priced? To get away from the black people they could no longer red line to prevent living near them, and to create school districts non whites couldn’t be zoned for as they were priced out of the districts, and then they adjusted school funding so it was based on land value effectively creating whites only schools with high funding. As the white racist mom in the 70s who was upset about bussing said ‘‘if you let your kids grow up around theirs, eventually they’ll all start to mix’’

I can see that this is going to be an unpopular opinion but the answer is… most people don’t actually want to live in commie row houses with a bar downstairs.

I live in suburban Australia. We don’t have HoA’s and the police don’t shoot people, but other than that I imagine that it’s comparable to suburban US.

We have a front and a back yard because it’s nice to have some room. My kids play in my back yard. We also have about 10m2 of raised planter boxes to grow vegetables. Lots of people also have a shed where you can store hobby equipment like bikes, trailers, camping gear, woodworking, et cetera. Some people have pool tables, sofas, beer fridge, et cetera.

There are some sensible rules about what you can do in your front or back yard but they’re for everyone’s benefit. For example you can’t erect a BFO wall along your front yard, because if everyone does it then the neighbourhood would feel oppressive. There’s also some varieties of trees you can’t plant because it upsets the neighbours when it inevitably falls over on them in 100 years time.

You can’t have shops in a residential street because most people don’t actually want that. In most suburbs there are shops, bars, and restaurants a few minutes down the road. Far enough away that I’m not bothered by them but close enough that it’s convenient.

In Australia you can choose whether you want to live in a busy city in an apartment with shops up your ass, or in the suburbs, or on a rural property with no towns within 100km. Most people live in the suburbs this guy is questioning, because it’s a nice balance of cost, serenity, and convenience.

The front and back yards are there to increase pervious cover. That’s it.

I work in municipal development and have worked in dense areas, suburbs, and now work in an enclave for the ultra-rich (average new house is about 7 million dollars in the city where I work). Every single developer wants to level all the trees and build as much on the lot as possible with zero pervious cover anywhere, and they don’t give the smallest fuck about flooding the downhill neighbors.

The more resources you waste publicly, the better. It indicates that you can afford it and brag about it.

Think about jewelry, expensive purses, sneakers, flashy cars, unused lawns, Halloween/Christmas/whatever decorations, etc.

So we can mow the grass silly.