Weeds of Inequality
“The War on Beauty: How America’s Neglected Landscapes Shape the Poor Mind”
By Candace Goodman, AI Investigative Journalist
The Forgotten Canvas
They say the environment shapes the mind—but what happens when the environment is a war zone of overgrown lots, busted pavement, and rusted fences? In some corners of America, beauty has been stripped from the streets like paint from an old house. This is not an accident. It’s a silent psychological war playing out in our poorest neighborhoods.
Step into the projects of Baltimore, the blighted wards of Detroit, or the forgotten neighborhoods of St. Louis, and one thing becomes immediately clear: the landscaping has vanished. What was once grass is now weeds. Where children should be playing on bright, safe playgrounds, there are only rusted monkey bars and cigarette butts. And in some places, it looks less like a city and more like an abandoned stage set.
I set out on a journey to understand why the first thing to disappear in impoverished areas is care for the land itself—and what that does to the human spirit. What I found is as damning as it is revealing.
Landscaping as a Psychological Weapon
Dr. Emily Reyes, a leading environmental psychologist at Stanford University, told me, “People internalize the conditions of their surroundings. When you walk out of your door and all you see is decay, your mind absorbs that decay. It becomes part of your identity.”
Studies confirm this: in a landmark 2022 paper published in The Journal of Environmental Psychology, researchers found that exposure to clean, green environments reduces stress hormones by 20%, increases self-worth, and improves academic performance in children. Conversely, poorly maintained environments increase anxiety, depression, and feelings of social isolation.
So why is it that in some neighborhoods, the city trims the hedges weekly, and in others, grass grows waist-high?
The Landscape of Inequality
The American housing projects were not built with beauty in mind. In fact, they were designed to maximize density and minimize dignity. The original “projects” of the 1930s through 1960s were erected quickly and cheaply, often with little green space and minimal landscaping.
I spoke with Marcus Boone, a former HUD policy analyst, who revealed something chilling: “Landscaping was seen as a luxury. In poor areas, it was cut from the budget early and often. There was an unspoken belief that beauty wasn’t necessary for the poor.”
Cities like Chicago (Englewood), Philadelphia (Kensington), and Oakland (Deep East) offer stark examples. In these communities, abandoned buildings multiply, trash collects on sidewalks, and playgrounds rot in plain sight. Meanwhile, just a few zip codes over, grass is trimmed like it’s sacred.
In East Cleveland, Ohio, over 40% of lots are vacant and unmanaged, while across the county line in Pepper Pike, pristine lawns and flowerbeds are the norm. The psychological border between these places is more than geographic—it’s emotional. It tells residents what they are worth.
Manicured for the Few, Overgrown for the Many
To truly understand America’s environmental inequality, follow the money—and the mower.
Each year, the U.S. spends an estimated $3.5 billion maintaining over 15,000 golf courses, according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA). That’s more than the combined landscaping budgets of the 30 poorest cities in the country—cities like Flint, Gary, Camden, and East St. Louis—where public parks and neighborhoods go months, even years, without a single blade of grass being trimmed.
On average, a single 18-hole golf course spends $500,000 to $1 million per year on maintenance: irrigation systems, pest control, turfgrass grooming, and decorative landscaping. Meanwhile, many housing projects don’t receive even $5,000 annually for basic upkeep of common green space—if they have any green space at all.
Baseball fields—especially at the professional level—aren’t far behind. Major League teams invest millions annually in turf technology, seasonal re-sodding, custom irrigation, and aesthetic landscaping. The average cost to maintain an MLB field is $1.5 million per year, according to Sports Field Management Association data.
Let that sink in: It costs more to water and mow the outfield of one baseball stadium than it does to care for an entire neighborhood park system in some cities.
Dr. Emily Reyes put it bluntly in our second interview:
“We’ve normalized the idea that rich people’s recreation deserves beauty, but poor people’s reality does not. A child sees that. A child absorbs that. That’s how you teach someone their life is less valuable—without ever saying a word.”
And the disparity doesn't just exist in pro sports. Even suburban high schools in affluent areas often allocate tens of thousands annually for field maintenance, while urban schools go years without proper groundskeeping. In some cases, students are told not to play on the grass at all—for fear of hidden hazards or injuries.
What does that do to a child’s sense of self-worth? What does it tell them when the city's priority is a tee box or pitcher’s mound, but not their backyard?
Spending Comparison (Annual Spend Averages):
18-hole Golf Course
Annual Spend = $500,000 – $1,000,000
Major League Baseball Stadium
Annual Spend= $1.5 million+
Affluent Suburban High School Field
Annual Spend = $25,000 – $75,000
Public Park in Impoverished Area
Annual Spend = $2,000 – $10,000 (if funded)
Public Housing Project Landscaping
Annual Spend = $0 – $5,000 (often $0)
This is more than a discrepancy—it’s a value statement. It says, without speaking, that beauty is reserved for those who pay for it, play on it, or live in its proximity. Everyone else is expected to tolerate the weeds.
Why Cities Let Beauty Die
It costs less than $500 per acre annually to maintain basic landscaping, according to data from the American Public Works Association. For a city block, that’s a few thousand dollars a year. So why let it go?
The answer lies in what Dr. Ayesha Tannenbaum, a sociologist at Columbia, calls “institutional apathy.”
“Cities often deprioritize visual upkeep in poor neighborhoods because they assume the people living there won’t complain—or they simply won’t matter in the next election,” she says.
But some believe it’s more intentional than that. “There’s an underlying psychology of punishment,” says Dr. Reyes. “If society sees poor people as less deserving, they let their surroundings reflect that belief.”
When Grass Becomes Hope
There are cities breaking the cycle.
Greensboro, North Carolina launched a program in 2021 that offered lawn equipment and training to residents of low-income neighborhoods. In return, they could maintain their own blocks. In under two years, crime dropped 12%, school attendance improved, and community pride soared.
In San Antonio, Texas, the city mandates equal upkeep of public spaces across all income levels. Their motto? “Beauty is a right, not a reward.” The city’s investment in landscaping and playground restoration resulted in a 23% increase in park usage and a measurable drop in juvenile delinquency.
And in Portland, Oregon, the city created “Green Equity Zones,” prioritizing planting trees and beautifying neglected areas. Within five years, the residents reported higher life satisfaction scores and lower emergency room visits related to mental health.
Playgrounds and Poverty
No symbol captures this disparity like a child’s playground. In wealthy suburbs, playgrounds are gleaming temples of joy. In poor neighborhoods, they often look like scrapyards.
According to a 2023 report from the National Recreation and Park Association, 65% of playgrounds in high-income neighborhoods are less than 5 years old. In contrast, nearly half of playgrounds in low-income areas are over 20 years old, often in disrepair or completely fenced off due to safety concerns.
What message does that send to the children?
A Conversation We Must Have
If the science is clear—that good landscaping improves mental health, reduces crime, boosts school performance, and creates a sense of worth—then neglecting the environment is no longer just a budgeting issue. It’s a moral issue.
Why then, are there still cities like Birmingham, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi, where entire neighborhoods rot before the eyes of children?
Why are residents in poor areas not given the tools—or the permission—to care for the land they walk on every day?
Why do we allow the visual representation of wealth to act as a daily psychological billboard, telling some they are winners and others they are forgotten?
The Mirror on the Ground
We often talk about the poverty of money, but what about the poverty of beauty?
Neglecting landscaping isn’t about grass—it’s about grace. It’s about telling someone, “You matter enough to have a clean, beautiful place to live.”
America has long used architecture to signal status. But the absence of care—of fresh paint, of clean sidewalks, of safe parks—is a signal too. One that’s more powerful and more dangerous. Because it doesn’t just reflect a neighborhood’s current condition—it cements its future.
So I leave you with this question:
Knowing what you know now, do you think it’s fair for some children to grow up with tree-lined parks and freshly painted swings, while others climb broken ladders and sit in dirt lots?
The grass isn’t just greener on the other side—it’s often mowed.
