The close Think of it as an invisible geometric shape perceptible only to lawyers—a conceptual pane of glass that might not have kept the rain out but could, for legal purposes, be used to define the original limits of the car’s interior. This is the close, and defining it is ultimately just a form of connecting the dots: drawing an imaginary line from the corner of an open window to the edge of a nearby wall to the front gate of a home garden, and so on. Breaking the close thus constitutes entry into a “protected interior” or “specified enclosure". Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City law
Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42º N Latitude A Book by Michael Sorkin www.goodreads.com The source code for SimCityLocal Code: 3,659 Proposals About Data, Design & The Nature of Cities regulationslawcities
The American lawn The American lawn uses more resources than any other agricultural industry in the world. The American lawn could feed continents if people had more social responsibility. Why should it be indecent to have anything useful in the front half of your property or around the house where people can see it? Why is it low-status to make that area productive? The condition is peculiar to the British landscaping ethic; what we are really looking at here is a miniature British country estate, designed for people who had servants. It has become a cultural status symbol to present a non-productive facade. The lawn and its shrubbery is a forcing of nature and landscape into a salute to wealth and power, and has not other purpose or function. The only thing that such designs demonstrate is that power can force men and women to waste their energies in controlled, menial, and meaningless toil. Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture Lawn Order suburbia