Perhaps it’s the fact the yard is covered with green grass, which is a water no-no in my world, yet a feature imposed by our homeowner association regulations. How we’d love to replace it with artichokes and succulents.

Maybe it’s because my garage is in the back of the house and leads to the backdoor entrance. That sure makes it convenient for unloading backpacks and groceries.

I suppose both of these excuses keep me from perching on the brick steps out front, except once in a blue moon, like on the magical night of Halloween, when hundreds of candy-crazed strangers travel to our “safe” suburban neighborhood to trick-or-treat up and down the tree-lined streets.

Yes, my front yard has practically become a stranger to me, nearly a decade after the baby-rearing years when my girls ran wild with the Bernsteins, the Murphys and the Ritters, the sidewalks their playgrounds for colorful chalk graffiti and clunky, three-wheel vehicles.

It’s kind of eerie how people don’t venture out front anymore.

The children in those other families have gone off to college. They’re the same children that showed up at my front door when my first daughter was born, asking “Can we see the baby, Mrs. Bradley?” Before going away, they had graduated from a variety of private schools in the city. When I was growing up, every kid on my block went to the same public school.

Our pediatrician, who lives in the hood, came over when both daughters were born and delivered hand-knit sweaters she had made for them in her spare time. We no longer go to her house for annual neighborhood Christmas parties. We just see her face when the girls contract a bug, break an arm or crush a finger in a door.

Sure, once in a while, I park at the curb or a soccer mom picks the girls up out front, and I wave to Mrs. Bernstein across the street. But on most days, I shuttle them through the back.

Once inside the back door, my daughters quickly become shut-ins, burdened with hours of homework, entertained after with hours of FarmVille or shows like NCIS. When I was growing up, everyone ran out front after homework, playing ball in the street, climbing trees and doing cartwheels or just shooting the breeze on the curb.

What has changed for me and my family?

Is it having personal computers that lure us into a false sense of “community connection” that actually keeps us from having a real one in our very own neighborhoods? Is it the security issue which gives parents a false sense of panic over children being abducted on their lawns by a stranger? Calming that hysteria is the subject of the eye-opening book, Free Range Kids.

I know it’s not just a city thing because last Friday night, on our way to a friend’s home for dinner, we drove down a thoroughly urban street where parents with toddlers were hanging out on their stoop, the children playing and the dad pouring his wife a glass of red wine.

I felt envious. Here I live in one of the most coveted neighborhoods of San Francisco, and I’m lacking all that I truly desire on a Friday evening: the family outside taking in the sunset, sipping organic wine, moving to the rhythm of a glider, and waving hello to other families doing the same. I guess you could say I need to move to the country. But, then again, think of that couple on their stoop on Divisadero Street.

The concept of the country can and should always be in our minds. It is that concept that keeps neighbor connected with neighbor, every night, not just that one October night when we venture out to the stoop.

This is the latest entry in Luanne Bradley’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Images: tomask, Luanne Bradley

The post Mourning Time on My Porch: Does Anyone Play Out Front Anymore? appeared first on EcoSalon.

FarmVille is the green place to be for city folk reaping the rewards of rural relationships and cooperation through good, clean social gaming.

The hugely popular farming sim has my friends and family bragging on Facebook about a season of planting cash crops, helping neighbors grow lettuce instead of lawns and finding new homes for lost little duckies. It quacks me up!

The strategy of the Zynga grainchild: The user is given the chance to start their own farm, build it out and move up in levels.

After they have plowed the land and their crops are ripe for picking, they harvest the food and sell it for cash to buy new crops. Other ways to get money include helping friends with their farms or sending free gifts to friends, such as trees and farm animals.

“This is a good game because it’s not superficial where you are going out and buying clothes or houses like in other virtual games,” says my 13-year-old daughter, an avid fan who set up a farm for her 10-year-old sister in recent weeks planting eggplants, soybeans and strawberries. “You’re building crops and helping neighbors with their crops and in the coming years, it will really come down to that.”

My teen, now at level 7,  finds FarmVille lets her and her Facebook friends associate a fun game with something not product-based, and that it helps train her generation to think green.

That’s the main reason an employer in Minneapolis, Minn. set up a real organic farm as a playground and work perk for his employees. His concept is a hit as the Haberman public relations team clocks time hoeing and raking after hours.

You don’t get points with your boss for playing FarmVille so my cousin, Alan Finkelstein, plays in his spare time when he’s off work. He’s at the top of the heap with an impressive level 31. He’s a god in his neck of the woods. You don’t get to level 31 without logging some serious computer time.

“Okay, FarmVille police, I was forced to play, they kidnapped me and made me play,” Alan jests, defending his highly-coveted acreage. “I do notice more things in the world that are related to farms than I used to prior to playing.”

Alan says he gave it a go when a friend was playing and really loved it. He finds the game makes him more aware of things associated with farming and holds a “zen quality” for the L.A. journalist, husband and Facebook fanatic.

“I like to strategize, collect, plan, design, steal other folk’s designs, send gifts to friends, receive gifts from friends, and having to be patient in growing my own farm,” he says. “My cousins say to me, ‘Dude, your farm is amazing and thanks for sending me the horses’ and it’s nice to have that interaction.”

Del Monte should only have such interaction. This sim is clearly a brand of socialism Americans can get behind.

According to Virtual Worlds News, FarmVille has gained over 1 million new players per week since its June 19 launch, and currently boasts more than 11 million daily active users.

Apparently, that’s the total achieved by lead designer Mark Skaggs over his entire career with Electronic Arts where he designed other strategy games such as Command & Conquer and The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. He says FarmVille will probably break records, largely because he’s keeping it fresh.

“One of the really fun and successful features we added is what we call the ‘Lonely Cow’ feature,” Skaggs told VWN. “You can help find it a home, then somebody claims it. You’ll get a brown cow instead of the white cow you had before. Then you milk the brown cow and you get chocolate milk! That’s a ‘moment of delight,’ totally unexpected but cool.”

We once felt that same moment of delight when competitors landed on those high-priced blue properties we monopolized – Park Place and Boardwalk – and had to fork over big bucks for encountering our big, red hotels.

I much prefer a society that works together to land big red barns, sustainable crops and organic chocolate milk. As my wise daughter said, it will really come down to that.

Main Image: Sabrina.dent

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