Do community “laws” discriminate against certain sorts of people? (rant to follow…)
I was thinking about this the other day as I read in the paper about a local suburb that was making a new law restricting the number of cars that can be parked in front of a house. The law is in response to a local car collector who apparently has a dozen cars parked around his house, but I had to wonder about the ways it will hurt lower income households. I’ve had groups of friends who have rented houses together and therefore needed to park 8-9 cars in front of the house. And for families with multiple generations living together, multiple cars are just part of having multiple adults living together under the same roof. This is America – to be a working adult in most places in the country (that have no public transportation) you need a car. So this new rule limits the people who can live in the community to small single family households.
Same thing with laws about parking on the street. In towns that ban overnight street parking unless you have a home with a driveway, you can never have guests. I hated this when we lived in an apartment. We were more than willing to have friends or family stay on the pull out couch, but they would get a parking ticket (or would be towed) if they came to stay. The law effectively implies that only those rich enough to own a house with a driveway are allowed to entertain and socialize.
And don’t even get me started on the communities around here that have laws stating you cannot hang clothing up to dry outside. So I am not legally allowed to be environmentally friendly???
I understand these laws are all about property value and even safety, but when did your “right” not to have to look at my laundry or a few extra cars necessitate legal action? Does it really mess your life up to have to look at that stuff? As much as it messes up the lives of those that honestly need to park that many cars on the property? Some days I just have to wonder how far we will go to insulate ourselves against dealing with anyone not exactly like us or with anything we may not like. Are we really that self-consumed?