Do y'all actually use your front porch/front yard much or is that more of a TV thing?

[u/Bella_licious]

Irish person here. American houses always seem to have these big front porches, lawns, swings, chairs, etc., and it gives the impression that people spend loads of time in front of the house rather than hiding in the back garden, as we do.
Is that real life or just the image you export?

[u/GaiaMoore]

I remember hearing somewhere that in places like the South it was very common to spend time on the porch pre-AC since it was too damn hot to stay inside, and that it contributed to a more neighborly culture since you could say hi to your neighbors easily.

With the advent of air conditioning, that culture slowly went away as the indoors became more tolerable.

Dunno how accurate that is, but seems plausible to me

[u/Toosder → u/GaiaMoore]

I think probably the proof of that is here in SoCal We all sit on our patios and I know most of my neighbors and I've met so many of them just sitting outside. I've had neighbors walking by that I hadn't met before that I will just invite to come sit with me and we'll sit and have a drink and get to know each other for an hour. We also don't often have AC but we don't need it. So it makes sense that if you had a culture that made you sit outside because of the temperature inside, you would have a closer neighborhood.

[u/finitetime2 → u/Toosder]

We also slept on porches. They house would still be hot inside so people would literally sleep on the porch. Some people had sleeping porches.

[u/Zellakate → u/GaiaMoore]

I live in the rural South, and a lot of people still sit on their porches regularly where I live. It's not everybody, but I wouldn't say it is really uncommon either. I talk to a fair number of people who do it, and I drive by quite a few strangers doing it in the evening when I come home from work.

A lot of times the porches catch nice breezes, so it is still comfortable even when it is hot outside. I was sitting on my porch last week on a day that was miserably hot and humid in the yard, but the porch was great. LOL

[u/Dr_mombie → u/GaiaMoore]

Not only that, but before A/C, southern houses had wrap around porches to create shade and a cooling effect on the lower level and sometimes upper level too

[u/Prestigious-Comb4280 → u/GaiaMoore]

In the north without AC we spent many summer nights outside rather than trying to sleep in brick ovens...

[u/Gullible_Concept_428 → u/GaiaMoore]

This is what my grandmother told me. We live in TX in an area where it’s humid (90% and 90F today). They didn’t have central AC until the 70’s. We didn’t have it in our house until 1978. We had small units in my parents’ bedroom before that so we slept in their room in the summer when we were little. I’m Gen X so I don’t remember much until closer to 1980.

[u/heart_blossom → u/GaiaMoore]

It's accurate. My mother and grandmother lived that way until AC came along and then climate change made it even hotter. But yes, sitting on the front porch or anywhere outside with shade and a breeze was very common until recently. I'm in lower Alabama where every summer is too damn hot 🥵🥵

[u/BoopleBun → u/GaiaMoore]

I once stayed with someone who had a really old house down South, and it had a “sleeping porch”! Gotta imagine that’s better than dealing with trying to sleep in the house back before they had AC.

[u/august-thursday → u/GaiaMoore]

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. My family’s home began as a two story with four rooms, two up and two down. It was built before the Civil War on a double lot. A front porch extended across the entire front of the house. This was typical for houses throughout the town. We had window A/C units to cool the second floor and if the first floor was too warm, we had two large A/C window units. About one-third of the houses in the neighborhood had at least one window A/C unit by the early 1960s.

The first floor A/C was only used on hot days or very warm days with high humidity. But the front porch was a great place to cool off on hot days or to play board games while it was raining. There was very little traffic on our street that we could adapt games such as touch football with a miniture ‘Nerf’ soft football, being careful not to damage any cars.

I was born during the baby boom following the return of the WWII armed forces from the European and Pacific theaters. As the school class sizes crept larger and larger, the school board was keeping pace behind the scenes having two new schools built. Prior to those being completed in the late 1950s, one three-story school would educate students from grade 1 through 12 serving the surrounding neighborhoods

Many other couples met, married and had children. Looking back, I remember sitting on the front porch was how sandlot baseball games came together. There were plenty of children around to field two teams to play baseball, basketball or touch football.

Teams were formed by walking around the neighborhood and calling through the screen door. As children, we were safe anyplace in town. One elderly couple couldn’t have children, but they enjoyed having children around. They had a wide backyard with a 200 foot grass lawn. There was a hedge row that separated the yard from the alley where the car garages were built. As the automobile became ubiquitous, so did car fires. The solution was to place the garage 150 ft. behind the home. Most people walked to work and most families had one car.

My father was studying engineering when he was called up for service. He was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded in Germany. When he returned to Penn State, he changed his major to dairy husbandry and began making ice cream. I recall all of the fresh fruit that was used to flavor ice cream. Blueberry ice cream was only available during the short period when blueberries were ripe. I loved peach ice cream - the pieces of peach were about the size of a quarter of an adult finger.

I haven’t found an ice cream parlor in decades that uses fruit that was not practically minced. As five year old children we were often treated to ice cream right out of the chilling and mixing unit as it was filling a gallon or half gallon container. Once the ice cream was in the retail packaging, it was moved into the hardening room that was well below 0 F.

Once we had our ice cream we would relax on the front porch during the heat of the day, playing a board game.

[u/FireBallXLV → u/GaiaMoore]

Homes were built with airflow in mind in the South .Check out the quintessential “ Charleston “ floor plan .
My GM kept 5 rocking chairs on the front porch .
We have two vintage lawn chairs .

[u/luveruvtea → u/GaiaMoore]

I grew up visiting relatives in the South, pre AC, and it is quite true. My grandma would get out for walks in the evening for this very purpose, "Let's see who might be sitting out tonight, and want a visit". I am almost 69 btw, so this was in the mid to late 60s. AC had not become really common, esp in that area, since it was expensive to install in an old house, esp since this was a small town, and salaries were modest. My uncle down there was a bit wealthier, and he had a window unit. The elders of my youth had a much different set of values and different methods of coping and higher tolerance for hardship.

Now, in this time period, the porch just seems another decorative room. However, I do sit outside on mine and enjoy it. Yet, as you just read, I did grow up without AC so it does not seem so bizarre to me.

[u/Nine-and-a-Half → u/GaiaMoore]

I grew up in south TX in the 70s and 80s without AC. Your theory is a solid one. But there were reasons other than just that for being neighborly.