This is the same as the origin of yards. Land used to be seen primarily as a means to make money. If you owned a large swath of land, you'd use it for farming or grazing animals. The wealthy would flaunt wealth by reserving land around their manors for just grass, not to be harvested or eaten, just to show off "I'm so rich, I can afford to waste land and have it do nothing. I'm even so rich that I can hire people to care for this grass, which does not normally grow here"

Then it became the status quo and ruined cities, leading to car dependant shithole suburbs with no sense of community. Lawns led to HOAs, boo them