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Comment by digital_sawzall | Hacker News Reader

Yet places like Arizona are famous for their lush green lawns and golf courses.

Golf courses, yes. Lawns? I grew up in Tucson and rock lawns are standard. I'm sure I've probably seen grass lawns in Southern AZ that weren't turf, but I'm having a hard time remembering one.

> I'm sure I've probably seen grass lawns in Southern AZ that weren't turf

FYI, "turf" doesn't mean fake grass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_turf

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turf

Not sure what you mean by those links, but they seem to pretty clearly indicate that "turf" does not imply "artificial"; the meaning of the term always includes real grass, so using "grass" and "turf" as if they're mutually exclusive alternatives makes no sense.

I mean to imply that you’re straight incorrect on top of being pedantic. The dictionary link provides definition 1b for turf as “an artificial substitute for this (as on a playing field)”.

Not only have you added nothing of value to the topic at large, you provided incorrect information. The intent was obvious enough that you felt confident “correcting” me. Thanks for playing.

I don't think you're parsing the dictionary correctly. Using "turf" to refer exclusively to artificial turf is not supported by the dictionary you cite, and is unnecessarily confusing and distracting. In the future, just be explicit and use the term "artificial turf".

Looking at satellite imagery for a few minutes, I couldn't find a single lawn in Tuscon, but in Phoenix they are all over the city. I believe Phoenix has a lot more local water though. Native American civilizations had over 100 miles of canals and irrigated agriculture along the Gila, which is why American farmers settled there in the first place, reusing some of these canals even.

Yeah, that tracks. They do have more local water, but also fairly affluent areas that can afford to maintain a green lawn in 120F summers. Totally stupid.

Phoenix's farmlands and orchards have been taken over real estate development. Real estate development and speculation has been the main driver of economic growth in Phoenix since the 60s, and accelerated with the widespread use of A/C.

I don't think people in Phoenix have lawns because there is more local water.

As far as Tuscon, Brad Landcaster's neighborhood has a tree canopy, and it's all watered by rainfall, and street storm water runoff harvested in eddie basins.

Well if its not due to water supply then what lead most all development in tuscon to have rock lawns or desert scrub, while all over phoenix in neighborhoods rich and poor there are grass lawns? I assume this has to do with how local water is priced or how local ordinances are applied with respect to the available water supply, although maybe I am wrong in that assumption and that water has really nothing to do with it.

Strictly speaking, Phoenix does have access to more water.

Tuscon is on top of a mesa, and its biome is the upper Sonoran. It's not quite high desert. The aquifer in the mesa has long been drained and Tuscon has to pump water from the central canal uphill to the mesa.

But it isn't as if the Phoenix is really flushed with water. An accident of legacy water rights from Colorado via the canal makes water available, but that doesn't mean that water supply is local nor sustainable.

Further, those existing water rights are being challenged by Native interest -- water rights are recognized by the age of the claim as senior water rights. Arguably, native tribes have the most senior rights, but even those claims that have been acknowledged by the legal system has not been historically enforced.

Tuscon is also where the Arizona laws allowing greywater was pioneered, as well as curb cuts. It seems to me there is more interest in this kind of stuff in Tuscon than there are in Phoenix.

Here are Tuscon development that are neither lawns nor xeriscaping:

Brad Landcaster's neighborhood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcAMXm9zITg

University of Arizona - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtabtkWMxBc

> But it isn't as if the Phoenix is really flushed with water. An accident of legacy water rights from Colorado via the canal makes water available, but that doesn't mean that water supply is local nor sustainable.

Odd to be well so informed overall but somehow not aware of the SRP?! I think Phoenix is flush with water because of the CAP and SRP combo. It sits on the confluence of the Salt and Gila rivers while CAP water comes down canals from the CO plateau.

Lawns are illegal in most of Arizona actually. Golf course make money and prioritize that over the environmental impact.

Also, most of those golf courses are taking advantage of 150+ year old water rights laws that no longer make sense in our current environment.

That is either patently untrue or there are a whole lot of loopholes. I used to live in Phoenix more than 20 years ago and had a lawn that matched anything you'd find in Chicago. I still have about a dozen friends living in the Phoenix metro and all of them have at least a patch of lawn, not to mention the grass areas maintained by the HOA.

I live in Phoenix now, and there are plenty of lawns.

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