Here in Southern California, where I grew up, all residential properties are fenced. Period. Ones yard does not flow into one’s neighbor’s yard. Ever. Period.
I have visited the South (especially Knoxville) and Pennsylvania. In both locations, no one has any fences! the land just flows everywhere and houses are placed on it. You cannot tell where the property lines are, nuthin!
What is up with that?
What about your dogs?
What about your privacy?
What about your landscaping choices?
Huh?
One could just as easily say “What’s the deal with you Californians and your fences? How can you find enough room to get a good backyard football game going? Are you so estranged from your neighbors that you can’t settle matters without fences?”
Many Southerners still live in a communal atmosphere where neighbors’ children and dogs are not considered hostile intruders in one’s yards. Having said that, things are slowly changing and most people keep their dogs tied up nowadays.
Perhaps it has something to do with cheaper land… if I had paid $200,000 for a quarter acre yard, I might be a lot more anal about my property rights. Or if I lived somewhere that the risk of a neighborly lawsuit is an accepted fact of life.
I’m not sure this has a factual answer, maybe this should go in another forum.
This thread is probably better suited for IMHO.
But anyway …
Growing up in the Midwest we did not have fences, either. They would have gotten in the way of neighborhood football games across several yards, being able to run with a kite across all the lawns and made it so much easier when delivering newspapers at 5:00 am (I just walked/ran from door to door).
But seriously, dogs were on 20-foot chains in the backyard (or were trained by their owners to behave all the time), and neighbors were, well, neighborly! Everybody knew everyone else, and everyone’s home was a safe haven to any kid on the street, if needed if ever.
I’ll be home at Thanksgiving and I know what I will find; no fences. The original neighbors will still be neighborly with open yards and beautiful landscaping blending from yard to yard. As for the “newer” neighbors, well, being neighborly apparently is not in their upbringing. Their yards will not be fenced but the garden arrangements close them off from the rest of us. Pity.
I read about these “lawns” once. What’re they like? 
As an eastern urbanite, something that amazes me about a lot of the country is that things are spread out so much that even in cities people have lawns. I’ve been thinking about it for a few minutes and I’m fairly certain that there isn’t a private home with a real lawn within walking distance of where I live. I swear it’d be 45 minutes- 1 hr of walking in a straight line in any direction until you hit a ‘lawn,’ and even those would be tiny parcels of grass seperated from other houses by sidewalk and/or alleyways. For me, a fence around one of these tiny ‘lawns’ automatically means “big dog” and therefore “approach house with caution.” A possible caveat is toddler toys in the fenced area, which might mean the fence is to keep a toddler corraled. Safer to assume big dog…
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My question about places like L.A. and Houston was: “But how do you know this is a slum? They’ve got lawns!!!” Not to mention palm trees in CA… My usual visual cues for ‘bad neighborhood’ just aren’t there. Conversely, I’ve met quite a few people from other parts of the country who get very nervous in any neighborhood of rowhomes here, even if they’re in a pretty swank neighborhood, because rowhouses = slum.
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As long as there’s some recognizable boundary (this can be something as subtle as neighbors running the lawnmower in different directions), a dog will fairly easily learn what’s acceptable territory. And if you get along well with the neighbors, well, what’s the harm if your dog plays in both yards? Around here, there are dogs which will watch traffic (of course, the traffic watches them, too), cross the street, and play in the public parks with the other neighborhood dogs, without their owners having to intervene at all. No hassle, and happy dogs.
Well, I live in the South and have never noticed a lack of fences - people who don’t have fences tend to have a hedge or tree line or something to delineate their property. Usually houses with fences built them for their dogs or sometimes their kids, but the property lines are quite clear. My neighborhood has nearly all fenced or walled-in backyards.
I live in Pennsylvania and have never lived in a house without a fence. If the houses my parents lived in didn’t have fences, we would have built one, for the dog and for privacy. I don’t think I’d want to live in a house without a fence; I don’t want any damn kids on my lawn. One day I’m going to be one of those mean neighbors who keeps the frisbees that fly on my roof and gives kids the stink eye when they get too close to my property.
In NJ suburbia, it’s more common to have fenced in back yards for privacy, you know, so you don’t have to invite the neighbors over every time you barbeque (it also keeps neighbor’s pre-schoolers from wandering into your pool); while, OTOH, we have unfenced front yards. No one minds having unfenced front yards, because that’s rarely a hang out place for adults (it’s the wide-open neighborhood playground of elementary school aged children).
In fact, because of the way my front yard slope is landscaped, my front yard creates a flat lawn that goes right to the neighbor’s driveway. But about ten feet of that is really the neighbor’s property. But since it creates one contiguous plane, I tend to that strip (well, to be honest, my lawn service tends to it).
I believe the unfenced front yard syndrome here is mostly to create an esthetically pleasing look to the neighborhood, while the back yard is more of a private courtyard (created by fencing rather than buildings).
Peace.
Massachusetts suburbs here. Some houses where I live do have fences. But a lot are decorative fences that wouldn’t keep dogs or prying eyes out. The big picket fences that actually create a barrier I think are reserved for people with outdoor dogs and/or pools. So I guess if people need them they build them. Otherwise…bah. It seems unneighborly. Also, aren’t houses much closer together in California suburbs?
I live in PA. I have dogs. I have a fence.
My neighbor also has dogs. They have a fence too.
My other neighbor, no dog, no fence.
Guy behind us - dog, on a chain staked to the ground, no fence.
I know people who have those invisible fences as well. If you’ve never heard of this, it’s an electronic system with a buried wire that goes around the perimeter of the yard. If the dog gets too close to the wire, the special collar shocks him. After a couple of weeks of training, the dog won’t go out of the yard.
For what it’s worth, I’m also in an older neighborhood. The newer houses are usually built without fences, though I have seen a few fences in the new neighborhood down the road a bit.
All of the above are back yard fences. There are no houses near me with a front yard fence.
I’ll admit, this describes me. In Detroit, though (Detroit proper), you can often tell the good and bad neighborhoods – all have lawns – by the condition of the houses. There are some spots where every other parallel street alternates!
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We moved to a fenceless yard this summer. It was one of the attractions. We bought the invisible fence, but I’ve not bothered installing it yet, because our dog learned her limits really, really fast. In our old, tiny, suburban 50x120 fenced lot, she would try to get out all the time – had to keep the gate closed at all times. With half an acre and no fence, she shows no interest in going anywhere.
This is IMHO territory, but fences are just plain evil. I hope to God none of my neighbors ever get it in their heads to put one up. I ought to go see if we can put a compact on the deeds so they don’t sell to a fence builder in the future.
I lived in Lancaster (northern L.A. County) in my teens and 20s, and many people did not have fences. Dad mowed our lawn and the neighbour’s, and the neighbour mowed his lawn and ours. Up here in the PNW, my house is the only one in the area, except for one other house, that has a fence. It’s the only one with a gate.
Still, a couple of young beagles got into the back yard last weekend.
Fences are for warding off dogs and/or unwelcome intruders.
Some pet owners invest in electric fences which soon train a dog as to its territory.
Some ‘pet’ owners don’t care and let theirs roam at will.
Neighbors with an ill temperred pit bull were warned that their dog in another neighbor’s yard would put the dog at risk, continued to let it run loose. A few shots in the ground got their attention and a high board fence went up pronto.
The dog was still a noisey nuiscance. I ordered a “Dog Dazzler,” which arrived in the mail as I was mowing. The next time I came along the fence, the dog ran up to the fence and snarled and barked. A blip on the dazzler and the dog looked as if it had been hit across the face. It backed up and came forward as it to get through the fence. A longer blip set it back againd and it came at the fence madder than ever. A loooong blip and it turned tail and ran behind the house. From then on it dissappered just as it saw me. The leash ordinance requiers dogs to be fenced in or on a leash at all times.
Putting up fencing around an entire acre or two is not fun or cheap.
When I bought this house, the back yard was fenced (chain link.) I hate trimming the grass around the base of a fence when I mow (you older SoCal folks might remember mowing .) I didn’t need permission, but I asked my neighbors if they really needed my fence. One did, and I ripped out all but that side of my fence. Now, I simply mow a few inches over the property line, and they do the same. When I had a dog, I installed an invisible fence.
I didn’t strive toward a nice neighborhood just to have it look like an industrial site.
Just to chime in, I grew up in west side Hamilton, in southern ontario canada. Here, also, backyard fences were thought of as a fact of life (And in some cases, fun things to climb. 
)
What is this and how does it work?
Many planned communities forbid them because too many different kinds of fences can make the overall community look ugly. White picket fence next to rusty link fence next to split rail fence next to rought iron fence, and so on.
When viewed from a higher elevation, the community looks like it’s built in an egg carton. I remember a Far Side cartoon where a father tells his son how birds sing to mark their territory, while all around them you see nothing but a maze of fences making it look like they live in an oversized cube farm.
Fences, particularly nice looking cedar fences as opposed to chain link monstrosities, are good for privacy, but in all other respects are a pain in the butt. They’re expensive, they require maintenance, and they block the sun so that whole portions of the yard only get sunlight half the day and become unsuitable for gardening. If you have a small or narrow yard, the fence makes it seem smaller by blocking sightlines.
You California people are just talking about backyard fences, right? Because you see front yard fences here sometimes, usually in neighborhoods with bars on the windows. It’s not something you aspire to.