It's an aspect of British culture that stuck around after we separated. Ask them where it came from.

Gravel is terrible for actually making use of the space. You can't walk around a gravel lot barefoot the same way you can with grass. There's parts of the country where xeriscaping options are viable, but those don't tend to be plain gravel. More a collection of desert plants with some sort of stone between them instead of mulch.

My part of the country is too wet for xeriscaping. If I remove the grass, it will be replaced by some other plant, even if I try to tell it not to. I might as well put the effort into cultivating the plants that I want rather than just letting whatever will grow have at it. A part of my current goal is to get some violets established in the yard. I've seen other lawns wth that, and it turns into a bed of purple at the right time of year.

I like the greenery. While a textbook manicured lawn makes for terrible habitat, I've put the effort into having a diversity of ground cover. I regularly get pollinators hitting the flowers in my lawn and birds eating the seeds/bugs. I wouldn't get that with gravel/blocks.

Block yards look hideous.