Turf Grass has a place and a purpose … Sports fields, movie-night-in-the-park, a place for a dog to do their business but making mowed turfgrass the norm for both private residences as well as commercial properties and the margins of strip malls, retention ponds, highway embankments and all the other “nether regions” of human infrastructure is absolutely INSANE.
Even if you dislike plants or find them boring, using the native plants that evolved in your region as a “living machine” – to prevent flooding, prevent soil erosion, mitigate the effects of the urban heat island (through both evapotranspiratice cooling and shading the ground from the sun) – is just what makes practical sense.
Using native plants isn’t ‘environmentalism’, it is just ‘infrastructure*’ The plants that spent millions of years evolving in your region are naturally going to be best suited to helping the land stay alive and intact, as well as reducing the devastating effects of heat waves and flooding.
Encourage your local municipality to install natives along highway strips and around retention ponds and canals. It is just what makes sense.