In defense of grass

We hear all the time that we need to remove the grass and plant native plants, or use rocks and a few bushes to landscape our yards because grass uses too much water. Fiddlesticks! Water is never lost! It runs into the ground and back into the water table. It evaporates into the air and rains down somewhere else. It waters a plant and becomes a part of that plant until the plant dies, when it re-enters the environment. We drink it, and it is used and discarded and re-enters the environment.
The problem is the way people water. I have turned on my water, and run it 3 times only on the grass so far this year. I have watered my vegetable garden a few more times for the new seeds and baby plants, and have also hand watered the new bedding plants. But we have had a very wet spring for a desert state, so no more than that has been needed (so far). Also grass doesn't grow long, healthy roots if you over-water. Better to water a little longer at a time - less often, and force the roots to go deep to look for a drink.
When our house was newly built it continued to feel like a construction site until we got the grass in. Grass keeps the house cooler (truly) and delivers water back into the air making the local humidity go up. Grass gives children a place to play, us a place to connect with the earth and nature, and is just prettier.
Have you ever noticed that the cities are always watering in the middle of the day, sprinkling where they should be drip-irrigating, and over-watering? All the things they tell us not to do, they do. If they would feed the grass, mulch and grow things that are good for the soil they would need less water and we could still have our grass. I vote for a little less rhetoric and a little more responsibility on the part of the municipality as well as all the rest of us and I vote for green.