Jim Ledford wrote:

the root of the problem was how the neighborhood was
constructed. all the top soil was scraped away, trees
knocked down and houses built. yards sodded or seeded
without any soil conditioning. lawns lasted long enough
to sell the houses and then died. sad, but that's what
most americans receive when they purchase in a newly built
neighborhood.

Short of having to redo the lawn from scratch, what can one do, if
anything, to work with an existing soil that was poorly conditioned
from the beginning. Is there such poor conditioning that may make it
necessary to just start all over, or is there always hope by taking the
right corrective action. (For example, you described earlier the
effect of lime on heavy clay soil. Can there be so much clay that it's
impossible to or impractical to do anything?)

Thank you.