“It’s sort of common knowledge how people affect the environment,” Yabiku said, “but do landscapes affect the people?”

Desert landscaping has been prominent in Arizona for the last 20 years and involves desert and gravel front yards with walled-in backyards.

Yabiku?EUR??,,????'???s testing has involved converting the front yards of 24 graduate students’ homes on the Polytechnic Campus in Mesa, AZ. Some landscapes include grass and shade trees while some contain native plants with no watering. Some yards are a mixture of both. The research began in 2004, and the residents are questioned about their social behavior every other year.
The study is part of a larger grant funded by the National Science Foundation that runs through 2010 and looks at how urban areas function.

Early results: women generally prefer lawns and men like desert landscaping. Families with young children like grassy yards. The longer people live in Phoenix, the less they like desert landscapes. It may seem common sense, but ultimately the results could influence home developers’ landscaping choices or city planners’ park designs and landscape regulations. More will be published this year in the Environment and Behavior Journal.