[HN Gopher] France has passed a law protecting the sounds and sm...
___________________________________________________________________
France has passed a law protecting the sounds and smells of the
countryside
Author : yamrzou
Score : 58 points
Date : 2021-01-23 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (edition.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (edition.cnn.com)
| ur-whale wrote:
| I remember reading a Cato institute article about France in the
| 90's that went in a fairly deep analysis to conclude that France
| had basically chosen to become a country-sized theme park.
|
| In that context, such a law makes complete sense, I guess.
| simias wrote:
| Well tourism is a pretty important revenue source for France
| and many other European countries, that's not particularly
| surprising.
|
| If you want to see the non-theme park France feel free to ask,
| I can give you the address of my favourite kebab in a 70's
| style banlieue dortoir, you'll love it.
| wott wrote:
| Even in rural France, outside a few picturesque places and
| views, the reality has become pretty ugly in the last 30 or
| 40 years (and it keeps accelerating). In many villages (even
| small ones with less than a couple hundred inhabitants, even
| quite remote from cities), private housing development have
| spread around the historical village, generally in an
| anarchic manner (one can mock some forms of very organised
| housing, but anarchy is worse, it just pops up here and there
| with no thought for infrastructure, openings, or future
| development). Meanwhile the historical village is dying,
| houses are crumbling. Shops close in the centre and are
| replaced by shoebox monstrosities in the surroundings, made
| for cars.
|
| Often the population is not growing, it just wastes _a lot_
| more space, and does it in a relatively ugly way. As the
| condition of the historical village degrades, it also becomes
| ugly. At my place, the population keeps decreasing, it is
| down to only one fifth of what it once was, and yet the
| spread accelerates.
|
| For foreigners: just fool around Google Maps and StreetView,
| to have a look at the spread around many village kernels, and
| at the village entrances.
|
| A random starting point (one in many thousands): https://www.
| google.fr/maps/@43.4947119,0.923205,1184m/data=!...
|
| Look at the spread (as more or less organised areas, but also
| along roads). Then try to find the historical village limits,
| see how small it was compared to now. Well, the number of
| inhabitants was about the same as now.
| dTal wrote:
| I'd take anything from the Cato institute with a boulder of
| halite, seeing as it's an anti-regulation propaganda outfit
| funded by billionaires who consider any constraint on their
| ability to convert natural resources into personal wealth as a
| grave moral outrage.
| easyas101110110 wrote:
| Koch billionaire libertarian propaganda farm that released
| look-alike "IPCC" reports saying climate change was a hoax.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I moved from a city to the countryside a couple years ago, and I
| think what startled me is how loud it is. I confess I'd expected
| quiet but farm equipment, tractors, etc. make quite a lot of
| noise.
|
| Fortunately, the dawn chorus is nearly deafening and brings me
| joy every morning.
|
| It's been great, but now I realize that a few acres an hour from
| the city isn't quite enough for solitude, you're mostly in a
| working food factory (fair enough I suppose); if you want real
| quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres many hours away.
| wott wrote:
| > I confess I'd expected quiet but farm equipment, tractors,
| etc. make quite a lot of noise.
|
| Well, they are less noisy than they used to be (think of the
| change of noise emissions for cars, though added dampening
| body), but the usage is now constant.
|
| > I realize that a few acres an hour from the city isn't quite
| enough for solitude, you're mostly in a working food factory
| (fair enough I suppose); if you want real quiet it seems you
| might need 50-100+ acres many hours away.
|
| If you have meadows around, that's easier: the tractors only
| pays quick visits in the course of 3 days, once or twice a
| year, to cut/ted/make bunches of hay. Cutting grass is faster
| than ploughing a field, it requires less power, and less
| operations are needed along the year. And it smells good :)
| Then you have the cattle, but cattle in a meadow is not a
| nuisance generally.
|
| > if you want real quiet it seems you might need 50-100+ acres
| many hours away.
|
| But then you are the one who must maintain all those acres :-)
| devchix wrote:
| >what startled me is how loud it is
|
| Went on holiday to rustic Italy. Woke up by the freaking birds
| before 6, so, so loud! Louder than I've ever heard birds
| before, thousands of insolent cheep chirp squawk. It was
| amazing! I was/am a city dweller and was expecting Boccherini.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| At least where I live in the US, this isn't an issue. In fact I
| wouldn't mind seeing some constraints added where I am. A
| neighbor on a 1/3 acre plot with a rooster is no big deal. That
| same neighbor with 8 roosters crowing more or less all day long
| is a major headache.
|
| Not something I'm taking anyone to court over.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| It won't go down like that, unfortunately; it'll be a blanket
| set of restrictions that are selectively enforced, mostly to
| harass the Hispanic families who have moved into the
| neighborhood
| ogre_codes wrote:
| It is definitely selectively enforced. Not a lot of Hispanic
| families around here, but I saw a fair bit of that when I
| lived in Central California. The Mexican-Americans on my
| former block are having the last laugh though as one by one
| every house that sells on the block is being bought by their
| friends and family.
| alliao wrote:
| I'd laugh if it was an astroturf campaign sponsored by Monsanto,
| roundup smell is now enshrined in EU law!
| [deleted]
| vfclists wrote:
| Do you smell that? Do you smell that son?
|
| What?
|
| Pig manure.
|
| There is no smell like that.
|
| I love the smell of pig manure in the morning.
|
| ...
|
| It smells like bacon.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| I live in rural Switzerland, and I can tell you the sensory
| heritage is a real thing. I came for it. I love the sound and
| smells of having cows on the other side of my back fence. I would
| be very sad if a city dweller arrived and disrupted my quality of
| life by interfering with my neighbor's farm.
| wott wrote:
| Thing is there are assholes on both sides. And both sides may
| use laws to their convenience to keep being assholes.
|
| I have a neighbour in my village (and I mean, really 'in') who
| has several cocks, and he also has peacocks! The first ones
| start around 2 AM, the other ones basically never stop. I leave
| 300 yards away and I hear everything through the double window,
| every night. Oh, as I said peacocks, you probably thought "that
| neighbour must have a large property, a real park". Yeah, no,
| he has a standard detached house with its small piece of land,
| and the hens, the cocks, the peacocks spend their time on
| neighbours properties: a few remaining meadows (nobody really
| minds) and, what is more trouble, the gardens (they ate all my
| cabbages one year in a garden I have even farther from their
| place).
|
| Also, sometimes people complain against traditional things, but
| they often complain about 'industrial' size farms. Farming has
| changed a lot in France in 30 years (even though it still
| operates at much smaller scale than in countries like the USA,
| the sizes and modes of exploitation have dramatically changed).
| So people often complain about a massive pig farm, a massive
| poultry farm with several thousands chickens, and so on.
|
| In my village (coming back a bit earlier in time), people used
| to have 1 to 4 cows in a tiny stable, and would take them to
| the meadows. Now the few remaining so-called agricultors have a
| hundred cows in a hangar (often all year long). Actually they
| don't have a hundred cows: they have 99 cows, because starting
| with the 100th, the extra cows are no more subsidised...
| wott wrote:
| I add another examples about changes.
|
| I grew up in the early 80s in a very small village, in a very
| rural area: the parents of all pupils were farmers, except
| mine. Cereals production was dominant, with a part of cattle
| and poultry.
|
| Nowadays there are problems between farmers and non-farmers.
| Non-farmers will complain about farmers. Farmers will
| complain about the complaints from non-farmers. Which is
| right?
|
| Farmers will tell that those assholes from the cities do not
| understand their work, that they must adapt to traditions if
| they come settle there, and so on. For examples, that
| harvesting at 2 AM is normal because it is cooler. I am sorry
| but this is somewhat bullshit. Or complete bullshit. When I
| was a kid, they would never work at night, except for a real
| emergency (and they didn't have air-conditioning). The truth
| is, that those farmers have bought a lot more land, that the
| surface of each farm has tripled or quadrupled, and therefore
| they have to harvest 3 or 4 times more in the same time
| period or even in less time because they have specialised in
| a single activity (giving up on cattle for example) and must
| do all their surface at the same moment instead of just a
| part. There is no tradition in that, it is brand new.
|
| Also, nobody had breathing troubles because of harvesting
| when I was a kid. But now the harvesters are larger, faster,
| and they make clouds of fine dust which spread far. I am not
| normally asthmatic, but last times I visited there at harvest
| period, I had breathing problem because of that dust. Again,
| zero tradition there. Even with mechanised agriculture of
| WW2- 1980s, it was not a thing.
|
| So the recent changes are creating true problems, and
| complaining about does not always mean being an intolerant
| entitled asshole. Those problems cannot be swept away in the
| name of tradition. If farmer had remained traditional in
| their techniques, there wouldn't be such problems and people
| wouldn't complain about them.
| Glawen wrote:
| The thing is that farmers nowadays are required to have
| huge surface to survive. The cereal market is now global
| and they compete with mega farms in south america and
| Russia.
|
| I think non farmers don't understand why they have to bear
| the nuisance from food production when the food can be
| brought from outside, and cheaper. What they loose sight
| of, is that being able to feed your country is a huge
| advantage when shit hits the fan. During wartime, food is
| the most important ressource there is.
| easyas101110110 wrote:
| Attend UC Davis, and you too can smell cow and hog dung
| whenever the winds shift just right. ;-)
| blackbear_ wrote:
| Related read from the economist:
| https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/16/lock...
| Glawen wrote:
| I am glad that they passed this law in France. People from the
| cities are coming to the countryside, thinking they own it and
| they can remove any nuisance which does not fit they idealized
| view of the countryside. They are dead wrong, life in rural area
| is all about having good relationship with your neighbors because
| people help each other there. I remember when a storm hit the
| region, everyone got out, cleared the trees on the road and
| repaired each other houses.
|
| I grew up in a village in France: the neighbor has a rooster and
| the house is next to a church. When I took my wife, a city
| dweller, to the village, she told me she couldn't sleep past 6am
| due to the noises from the church (bells ring at 6, then every
| hour) and the rooster. I am so used to it that my brain filters
| any rooster or church bells sound.
| leppr wrote:
| That's all fine and I agree with your comment, but in the legal
| case that's the subject of the article, the rooster owners were
| the new neighbors, and the area looks fairly urban.
| Glawen wrote:
| not at all, the rooster's owner, Corinne Fesseau, lives there
| since 35 years. The plaintiffs bought the house in 2003, and
| come there only during summer.
|
| source: https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/05/13/ile-doleron-
| parce-quil-g...
| youeseh wrote:
| Do you think this law will succeed in making people who are
| moving to the countryside from the cities to befriend their
| neighbors?
| Glawen wrote:
| Moving to the countryside and starting a legal action on a
| local is not the best way to make new friends..
|
| I hope that this law will refrain people from going to court,
| which is a new habit in France.
| Wistar wrote:
| Many a small airport in the U.S. has met its fate by the
| complaints of newcomers.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I haven't read the text of the law, and with only a couple years
| of disused collegiate French language classes and no French legal
| training whatsoever under my belt, I don't think I could
| understand it if I tried. So, I might be wrong, or well off the
| mark here, but...
|
| [The disclaimer is longer than comment, but here goes nothing]
|
| ... This sounds like it might result in unexpected and
| undesirable outcomes. Are rural French communities really so
| invariant over time and space that you can set their community
| standards in stone?
| dgellow wrote:
| To answer your question: no
| bigjimmyk3 wrote:
| Growing up in a rural area, I have mostly good memories of
| roosters crowing across the road. I have no idea where the trope
| of crowing at sunrise came from, as they seemed to do it 24/7.
|
| Also, "smells of the countryside" gave me a good chuckle.
| antpls wrote:
| Those types of law hurt my feelings. I have studied and I'm
| working so hard every day, all of this to make sure the
| countryside is stuck in the past?
|
| It makes me want to leave France.
| yamrzou wrote:
| I wouldn't call that "stuck in the past".
|
| I think it is a very beautiful lifestyle, to be able to live
| away from the industrialization and closer to the nature.
| ineedasername wrote:
| It sounds more like a law saying "if you want to live in the
| past by having roosters, you're allowed to"
| bobthepanda wrote:
| People have odd expectations that their new neighborhoods should
| fit them and not the other way around. I'm reminded of a
| situation in New York City where a couple moved into a fancy new
| apartment building next to an active train yard and then
| proceeded to sue for noise because the train yard was 24/7.
|
| Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks._
|
| Honestly, aside from a few obvious things, "due diligence" is
| often pretty much impossible.
|
| If you move into an apartment in the winter, there's zero way
| of knowing that teens like to blare window-shakingly loud music
| in the park across the street every other day in the summer.
|
| Or that the seemingly innocuous speed bump in front of your
| building will cause the 10's of garbage trucks that race by at
| maximum speed at 2 am each night to rattle and bump with such a
| force that each one wakes you up.
|
| Or that a month after you move in, you get a new neighbor next
| door who blares bass-thumping music all day long while you're
| trying to work.
|
| Or that the building next door starts to undergo gut renovation
| and welcome to jackhammering all day long.
|
| Except for super-obvious stuff like is this a street with noisy
| bars/clubs, or yeah an active train yard -- which isn't even
| "due diligence" it's just keeping your eyes open -- there
| really isn't much you can do ahead of time. You just have to
| accept it'll always be a gamble.
| rektide wrote:
| > Do due diligence before picking a place to live, folks.
|
| Frankly houses for sale & rent should come with a sound
| recording of the last two weeks of use
|
| Dilligence is hard as heck; who knows if there's som neighbor
| that habitually does carpentry at 2AM or whose dog goes apeshit
| a couple times a week or a delivery service va blasting it's
| noisemaker at 5AM.
|
| I agree about doing due diligence but a lot is hard to account
| for. We are so much at the mercy of the outside world. Maybe
| the neighbors AC sucks & reverbs something wicked. How would a
| winter home buyer find that out? Or maybe it's the heater
| that's a problem.
|
| And it just doesn't feel like we're in a world where people
| tend to be open to working together to improve things.
| ABCLAW wrote:
| The law of nuisance isn't about 'people fitting each other'.
| It's about securing the rights of property holders. If someone
| is running a train yard and hasn't obtained encumbrances on
| surrounding properties to allow for permitted noise, that's on
| them.
|
| Do your due diligence when developing industrial properties,
| folks.
| recursive wrote:
| Reminds me of the slow downfall of the Laguna Seca race track.
|
| https://jalopnik.com/the-absurd-community-fight-that-could-c...
|
| Short version: People move in next to an established race track
| and learn they don't like the sound of race tracks. You'll be
| shocked at what happens next!
| brudgers wrote:
| E-series events?
| randompwd wrote:
| Are you being purposefully misleading?
|
| People moved in and then the race track tried to get noise
| restrictions from the 1950s changed to benefit
| them.(increasing no-muffler days(wtf?) and opening race
| course on sunday)
|
| From your linked propaganda piece:
|
| > restrictions on use set in the 1950s.
|
| I'd be heavily on side of people wanting a peaceful place to
| live than to cater to ignorant arseholes who don't want to
| use mufflers cos they like the sound it makes.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Big difference between race tracks, which are
| entertainment, and farming, which is where our food comes
| from.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Unfortunately, this often a necessity strategy in the US
| legal system, where you have to exercise your rights to
| maintain them. This could've been advised directly from
| their legal team. If you build a raceway with the
| expectation of being able to scale usage based on demand
| and need,End it appears that this is coming into jeopardy,
| they need to scale up sooner to establish president as more
| people move in. There is a similar problem with farm water
| usage where farmers are incentivized to waste water due to
| a use it or lose it legal situation
| gambiting wrote:
| Race tracks usually have established noise limits though, at
| most tracks I've been to if your car is louder than X you
| will be kicked out. I don't know this specific case but race
| tracks specifically have noise regulations attached to them.
| rconti wrote:
| At Laguna Seca, the limits come down with every passing
| year. There are very few 'unlimited' days (think: major
| race series), the number of limited days goes up, the dB
| limits for the limited days come down.
|
| If you want a laugh, do a Google Image search for "laguna
| pipes", to see the elaborate contraptions people bolt to
| the back of their track cars to redirect exhaust noise away
| from the sound meter to keep them from blowing sound.
|
| I've never had an issue, as the car I track is quiet and
| stock. But plenty of stock vehicles made in the past few
| decades are well past the limits already, and I feel the
| frustration of those who used to have a "legal" car, but
| keep getting tripped up by the lowering and lowering of
| sound limits.
|
| Overall, I simply cannot fathom those who are annoyed by
| the sound of the track. It's on a HUGE expanse of land. The
| complainers must be many hilltops away. I don't doubt the
| sound carries for many miles, but it's very much
| "background noise I choose to be angered by and whine
| about" versus actual nuisance.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Motorsports fans can be grateful that COTA (arguably one
| of the best circuits in North America) is in Texas. The
| only noise rules it has are no late night racing, and no
| racing during church time.
| rconti wrote:
| I guess it depends on if you're worried about having
| international series to watch on TV that happen to come
| to the US, or if you're interested in driving on the
| track yourself or spectating in person. For the latter
| two, obviously, having a track nearby is more important
| than the fact that it exists within the borders of their
| country.
|
| I was at COTA for the inaugural F1 race, and had a
| fantastic time, and also traveled there to see Aussie V8
| Supercars there.
|
| That said, I'm not sure I'd want to drive the track in a
| street car. I've driven it in sims I'm not sure it's
| great at typical road car speeds.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| That's a good point. Sadly COTA doesn't host a lot of
| amateur or public events. I would love to drive around
| it. I've driven around a few international tracks, like
| Spa, Zandvoort, Silverstone... it's amazing how
| accessible to the public some of those famous tracks are.
| rconti wrote:
| My first thought as well. Also, airports.
| wott wrote:
| I present a combo case: airport + racing track :-)
|
| At the moment, in France, the racing track of Albi, the
| track of which runs around the airport track, is being sued
| and fined for the noise. The track exists since 1960, there
| were only a few farms around in those days. People built
| beside the circuit later (building only started slowly in
| the 80s), and now they complain. And even now they keep on
| building right there, packing each empty lot with new
| houses!
| maccard wrote:
| While I agree the premise is silly, there is definitely more
| nuance in the (fascinating) article you shared. The one thibg
| stands out the most (and is only referenced once, compare to
| multiple times for their grievences) is that they're not
| looking to host one event a year on a Sunday, they want to
| allow racing 22 sunday's a year (out of 52). Given the track
| is closed for many months of the year, I'm guessing what
| they're really asking for is every week from April to
| september. Combined with the move from Tuesday to Thursday
| unmuffled for 20 weeks, it really means they want to change a
| race track which is a hobby track into a 4-day series for 5
| months of the year.
| [deleted]
| vmception wrote:
| Hudson Yards?
|
| Because I was always wondering how that would go
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Sunnyside.
|
| Hudson Yards completely caps the yard over with buildings so
| I don't think you can hear it at all.
| vmception wrote:
| Another exhibit in the irresistible allure of Manhattan
| jariel wrote:
| Noise pollution is a real thing.
|
| All of our industrial equipment should be designed with this in
| mind.
|
| Back up beepers are considerably louder than they need to be.
|
| Weirdly, the police sirens in Germany towns like Frankfurt are
| incessant - it's a very piercing sound, they use them often,
| all day long, and the sound bounces through the walls of the
| town which is 5 stories everywhere and narrow streets. In a
| North American city you rarely actually hear sirens - maybe for
| firetrucks.
|
| The low hum of gasonline engines really adds up, the electrics
| are so much nicer that way but I fear accidents.
| zip1234 wrote:
| Noise from vehicles in North America is incessant and pretty
| much not regulated/enforced whatsoever. Even electric
| vehicles are just as loud at speeds greater than about ~30
| mph. You can hear it all hours of the day if you are within
| several miles of an interstate.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Above a certain speed the main sounds you're hearing are
| tires against the road surface. At low speeds engine noise
| and braking are predominant, and the former for electric is
| actually a problem because people are used to hearing the
| sound of ICE cars when judging to cross the street.
|
| The worst bit is that sound walls, at least the ones
| deployed in America, do not even really fix the problem,
| because they can reflect sound (so they may reduce
| immediate area noise but increase it farther away). You
| would probably want something pretty much like a tunnel.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > then proceeded to sue for noise
|
| Oh that's going to go over well. Some people in my neighborhood
| tried suing and now we have every train blowing their horns
| through this entire section of the city. A dozen times a day
| and many of those at night.
|
| It's hard for me to not laugh at my neighbors every time it
| happens.
| lisper wrote:
| Unfortunately, the same thing also happens around small
| airports, and there the NIMBYs-come-lately often prevail.
|
| https://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/runway-
| removal-t...
| Symbiote wrote:
| The opposite also happens: the approach to London Heathrow
| gives wonderful views over London, but at least a million
| people suffer from more-or-less constant aircraft noise and
| pollution, except for a few hours overnight.
|
| Further expansion was approved in 2018, when one of the
| local MPs -- Boris Johnson, who had promised to "lie down
| in front of bulldozers" to prevent expansion -- was
| conveniently on a trip abroad during the vote it
| Parliament.
|
| (The areas of London overflown are a mix of wealthy,
| average and poor-ish, left-voting and right-voting, it's
| far too large an area to wave away as X group of people
| complaining.)
| JJMcJ wrote:
| In Bay Area, every time approaches to our three busy
| airports are changed there is a lot of bellyaching,
| mostly from rich areas like Saratoga and Woodside.
| Usually summarized by "Why don't you fly over those
| places were poor people live?"
|
| Made worse because well off areas tend to be in the
| hills, and so planes are lower over the ground.
| dmckeon wrote:
| Much of the recent complaining is due to concentration of
| near-ground routes as a side-effect of the NextGen
| routing system.
|
| http://soseastbay.org/jet-noise-in-a-nutshell-nexgen/
|
| https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/faqs/
| therockspush wrote:
| The sad part is NextGen was supposed to allow planes to
| approach at higher altitudes and descend with engines
| idled to reduce noise.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I have a commuter line next to me with a station 1000 ft.
| away. The early morning trains mute their horns and it's not
| very noticeable. With freight, I wouldn't expect them to
| bother but the FRA does allow for quiet trains.
| gambiting wrote:
| Tbf, what also sometimes happens is that you move somewhere,
| discover that a local business is breaking noise pollution
| regulations, but when you complain you are met with aggression
| because "it has always been like this, you should have done
| your research". And maybe that's true, but we have laws about
| some of this stuff for a reason - if they are being broken then
| I don't see problem with complaining.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| That would imply the regulations are right, correct, and made
| with diverse public input to represent all views.
| gambiting wrote:
| But I mean, what kind of the start to discussion is this.
| Should I not report a burglary either, since maybe the laws
| dealing with burglars fail to take into account someone's
| difficult life situation and don't reflect the diverse
| views of our citizens on the subject of non violent crime
| and punishments associated with it?
|
| Like, if I move somewhere where I know that the noise
| regulations mandate low noise after 10pm and there's a pub
| making a racket at midnight, of course I'm going to report
| it, the fact that it's been there for 200 years is
| literally completely irrelevant.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Or, at least in the parent article, the regulations were
| found to be nonsense, and so a law was passed to revise
| them.
|
| Lots of well meaning laws have unintended consequences. A
| large contributing factor to out-of-control Californian
| wildfires was that prescribed fires to thin the amount of
| combustible material were often stopped by the air
| quality board.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| It is more so that if a country have maximum sound regulations,
| then either the law should define exceptions for certain
| animals, and if it do not, it should be treated the same.
|
| I would assume there are certain maximum sound volume
| regulations in France as they exist in many places.
|
| "tradition" is all too commonly used as an argument to break
| the law. I do not believe it should play a factor at all
| whether something happened in the past, merely whether it
| violate the law.
|
| If France have nationwide rules about sound levels and the
| rooster exceeded them, then that is all the diligence a man
| needs to have done. One may certainly expect that the
| government upholds the law uniformly throughout one's country.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| That would imply a law is always absolutely correct. A legal
| system is ultimately made by humans who are fallible. And
| laws, particularly in the US, are usually created by one
| wealth/social class of people, and historically not made
| without diverse public input. I don't really care for holding
| such strict interpretations of law in high regard.
|
| It's not as if France doesn't have issues with perceived
| political elitism, given the existence of the yellow vests.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Certainly the power to decide whether laws are "correct" in
| a specific, rather than general sense is far too much power
| for any one party to have?
|
| If laws could be so easily ignored, we might as well do
| away with them.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| There's another aide of this coin which is also important.
| There's that whole urbanism movement which is all about making
| our town and cities more suited to humans. Making the streets
| more walkable, reducing traffic, increasing bike
| infrastructure, increasing green spaces. These are all things
| that people have the right to request in a big city because it
| makes living there better for everyone.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| And where does the freight in a big city come from? It
| doesn't just teleport in.
|
| Freight trains are probably the least bad way for freight to
| enter a city, given their efficiency and relative greenness.
| But they do need to be unloaded, maintained, and turned
| around somewhere, and wherever that is going to happen is
| going to be noisy.
| dbspin wrote:
| This is an argument against zoning residential properties
| near freight yards, airports etc. Not a criticism of making
| cities more livable. No one should have to tolerate that
| level of noise pollution. It's actively hazardous to mental
| health.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| One could also do due diligence when looking for
| residential property to live in.
|
| The neighborhood in question has 1 bedrooms starting at
| $2.6k a month, even after COVID depressed rental prices.
| People are by no means being forced to live there because
| they have no place left to go.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Common in farming areas near cities in USA.
|
| People move to be close to nature but the farmers are out
| spreading manure at 5:30 AM and trucks are going up and down the
| "quiet country lane" all day.
| rusabd wrote:
| I don't mind manure, but pesticides and other chemicals could
| be nasty. Also farmland is monocrop desert in USA
| JJMcJ wrote:
| This is true, but in the nature of farming areas today.
| Moving there and it's what you will face.
| wott wrote:
| > I don't mind manure
|
| I usually don't, but I once had a neighbour who found it
| clever to spray liquid manure through the water cannons which
| are normally used for watering maize... I just let you
| imagine for a minute the atmosphere in the whole municipality
| when he was doing that.
| dejv wrote:
| Don't know about USA, but in Europe there are very strict
| laws about pesticide use (things like wind speed, droplet
| size and buffer zones) to make general public safe. As a
| certified agronomist (person who give orders to start
| spraying) but to some extend also tractor driver you are
| personally liable to follow the rules. I am sure similar
| legislative is in use as well.
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