Turfgrass revolution: Measuring the expansion of the American lawn

This paper investigates one of the most understudied components of urban sprawl, the expansion of lawn monocultures and their concomitant high-input chemical management regimes. Introducing a method for estimating lawn coverage and growth, the paper models and explains the expansion of lawns using the case of Franklin County, OH. The results suggest that lawns occupy a significant proportion of total land cover (∼23%) and that lawns continue to grow as a relative proportion of lot size. The implications of this coverage are discussed in terms of both net changes in toxic chemical inputs and the policy implications of suburban ecology.