If you can get past the cover, there is an interesting article in this week's New Yorker about lawns. The article is full of fun statistics like "nearly a third of all residential water use in the United States currently goes toward landscaping" and "space devoted to turfgrass in the United States is growing at the rate of almost six hundred square miles a year."

Austin overall is ambivalent about lawns. Lawns are particularly ill-suited for the Texas climate - keeping all that grass green requires a lot of water and chemicals. Nonetheless, most single family homes in Austin are surrounded by green lawns, even after weeks of hot weather and little rain. The city imposes watering restrictions and recommends minimizing total lawn area, but many homeowner's associations have strict rules requiring well maintained lawns. However, with water conservation becoming an ever larger issue and the increasing attraction of xeriscaping for ecological, economic and aesthetic reasons, the Austin lawn may soon become a historical relic.