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Comment by fragmede | Hacker News Reader

Lawns are a Veblen good, like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior handbags. That we don't see them as ostentatious the same way is a matter of culture. By all means, people should live where they want to live; urban, suburban, rural. But let's be honest about things.

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Lawns are a place where I play, or my kids play. Or where I go to just sit and enjoy nature. They are also decoration (flower bed for example) to make my surroundings more pleasant which helps my mental state.

If your lawn is a Veblen good you are doing it wrong.

People enjoy their Louis Vuitton handbags, also improving their mental state. So the fact that you enjoy your lawn doesn't make it any less of a luxury good. Not faulting you for having one, we humans like our luxuries. Let's just understand that's what they are. Like BMWs and Rolexes.

> doesn't make it any less of a luxury good

That's not what Veblen is. A Veblen is better the higher the price, and that is not correct for lawns. A lawn doesn't get better if the cost of the lawn is higher.

A lawn is better simply for existing, which makes it a standard good.

Veblen is that the demand is higher the higher the price, instead of the opposite, but instead of getting hung up on wether or not it's a Veblen good, my larger point is that lawns are luxuries like BMWs and Rolexes. Nice if you can afford them but recognize that we've normalized being extra in this way.

Things you consider luxury may not be such for others and vice versa. You cannot really state your opinions as a fact and expect everyone to agree.

Obviously. And my opinion is lawns are expensive designer patches of dirt. Like a Rolls Royce or a Bentley. Really nice, and there's a whole industry surrounding them, and a whole lot of culture surrounding having one but ultimately problematic for society if everyone has to have one of their own. Which comes to the part where there are facts. A house with a lawn takes up more space than the exact same home without a lawn. Adding the lawn increases the footprint of a house which increases size and drops population density, which makes services more expensive because things are simply further apart. No one has to agree with my opinion that lawns are a luxury good, but it is very expensive for everyone to think they want one.

>which makes services more expensive because things are simply further apart

So does adding sewer, water and electricity too. And think of all the density we could get if could get rid of inner walls and stuff people together into one room per house? It doesn't make these items "luxury" for most people in the US though.

Yeah my Rolex helps my mental state. I can read the time with it and it is useful for deep sea diving.

And you can do that with a cheaper watch also. That makes in a Veblen, but a more expensive lawn is not a better lawn. So a lawn is not a Veblen.

Having a large expansive lawn with rocky features, rare plants, water features, and fish, while being perfectly manicured attached to an estate is a way better lawn than a 12x20 green rectangle in the front of a suburban home's lot.

That's the opposite of what I said. A Veblen good means the same item, if priced higher, is somehow more desirable.

But you've described a more expensive lawn that is actually better, which makes it a normal good.

You are simply wrong about lawns being a Veblen, and you should acknowledge that.

A Veblen good is something for which demand goes up as it gets more expensive, not for the same item. A Rolex isn't the same as a Casio.

Sounds like an urban park.

Not if you enjoy gardening.

Community gardens exist.

A lawn is a pretty boring garden.

Lawns exist in part because we made it too dangerous for kids to play in the street (this obviously will have a good deal of variance by location).

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