The rich are creating water scarcity

The American obsession with a close-cut patch of green has its roots in 17th-century Europe. Castles in France and England at the time were guarded by men whose vision couldn’t be obstructed by wild shrubbery in case anybody decided to lay siege, so grazing animals were used to trim unruly vegetation. Since these castles belonged to the wealthiest landowners, a smooth property became a status symbol.  Water usage aside, lawns also create a type of monoculture that represents the opposite of a biodiverse ecosystem. If the only thing you have in your yard is grass, the area is likely not attracting a plethora of different insect species.  In the 18th century, something akin to modern lawns gained popularity among the wealthy elite of France and England, and was imported by founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Lawns’ difficulty to maintain made them the exclusive domain of the wealthiest Americans until they became widespread in the 1950s.  The rich in India with their slavish imitation of the lawn culture  of the West are creating serious problems. They are ignoring the rich heritage of  biodiversity of indigenous  grasses, plants, flowers and trees of India  and resorting to wasteful monoculture of  turf for sheer visual effect.  Worse,  there is now growing use of artificial  turf by the corporate sector and municipal bodies betraying colossal ignorance of environment damage it causes  as it does not absorb rain water and  the run off results in increasing flooding.