Social media and community solutions

April 04,2025

key points from this story:

• Social media posts need fact-checking
• 40 million acres of lawns in America
• Lawns could grow food for the hungry
• Tax breaks for front yard gardens proposed
• Tiny houses suggested for homelessness solution
• Garages could fund tiny homes instead

Now I completely recognize that any posting on social media needs to be taken with a bushel of salt because social media is certainly a cesspool of misinformation, so you best do some ‘fact checking’ and determine what sources are legitimate. So when I recently saw a post suggesting there are ‘40 million acres of manicured lawns in America’ it was a case of immediately doubting such huge numbers. Imagine if the number were accurate and those acres were instead producing wheat how many bushels would be produced to feed the world’s hungry. Ultimately that was what the ‘post’ was actually about. It suggested that if lawns were ditched and the idea of ‘victory gardens’ was brought back food security would drop dramatically.