Last Updated: Oct 17, 2021
Good fences make good neighbors, or so goes the saying. In many parts of North America, many people have no idea who their neighbors are. While we might send a casual greeting when we meet at the mailbox, the lives of the people who live closest to us often remain a mystery. Recently, however, many homeowners in urban and suburban communities have begun to tear down those fences that dot the landscape between house lots in favor of a new trend: shared yards. They are growing in popularity and offer many social and ecological benefits. Below, we look at some of the benefits that come with sharing your backyard with your neighbor.
In multifamily housing units, shared spaces are the norm. Pools, gyms, libraries, and even rooftop gardens are spaces where families that share the same building come together to build community in the space that they share, by definition. In single-family residences, however, shared spaces are lacking. A 2013 Gallup Poll found that among the non-financial reasons for homeownership, many mentioned the ability to have the freedom to do what they want as one of the main reasons for owning a home.
In the United States, residential lawns average 10,871 square feet (or roughly a quarter of an acre). For homeowners in tight urban and suburban areas, the area around your home is often just big enough to fit a car (or two). This fact leaves many homeowners with essentially zero space for gardening, outdoor dining, and play areas.
Sharing a part of the space around your home with your neighbor has the immediate effect of increasing the size of available outdoor space. That might be reason enough for shared yards, but there's more to the equation: ecological and social benefits.
Fences and boundaries don't exist in the natural world. In fact, the enclosure of large open areas has hindered wild animals from engaging in their historical migration patterns and might be responsible for the death of millions of wild animals. On a much smaller scale, enclosing an acre of the yard might seem relatively harmless. However, one study found that fences can lead to one dead deer per every 7.8 miles of fencing annually. Poorly constructed fences can cause damage to a wide range of animals, including deer, foxes, squirrels, and other wildlife common to suburban areas. Choosing to take down fencing around your yard, then, will allow native wildlife corridors to emerge, even in places where urban development has occurred.
Environmental benefits that come with creating shared yard spaces include:
The agrarian writer and farmer Wendell Berry once wrote that "a community is a mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other's lives."
Sharing a community space with other neighbors will compel people to recognize the common bonds that bring us together. Sharing a rain garden or a system of raised vegetable beds, for example, will create a common goal that can foster a deeper connection. Neighbors that come together to devise a strategy to prevent erosion or reduce stormwater runoff can understand the importance of working together to protect their shared places.
Community yards can also help elderly neighbors to feel less isolated while also allowing children to have more space for playing. Shared yards can also open up opportunities for the sharing economy to flourish. Perhaps the trampoline that you own can be shared with your neighbor's children in exchange for the occasional use of a lawnmower. If your yard is the sunniest spot, that might mean that you and your neighbors convert it into a shared community garden. Then, the shady area behind their homes could be a perfect spot to build a playground collectively.
There is no "recipe" for the design and implementation of a shared yard. The exact setup will largely depend on your and your neighbors' needs, the amount of available space, and the specific contextual conditions. However, there are a few guiding themes that can help design mutually beneficial shared yards.
Of course, shared spaces require coordination. Some downsides include unfair division of labor and costs in maintaining the yard, whether gardening or purchasing tools. New neighbors could move in and not subscribe to the same philosophy that was agreed upon by your former neighbors. The cost of replacing a lawnmower (and the best model to do the job) might cause disagreement. As with anything that involves a team of people, communicating expectations clearly and frequently is always helpful.
The resurgence of shared yards is bringing back the concept of community space to people who live in single-family residences. The idea of taking down fences and sharing a space with your neighbors offers a greater sense of outdoor living space, as well as financial, ecological, and social benefits. So go talk to your neighbors and explore this concept—you might be surprised by some shared ideas!
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.