this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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This is a ridiculously overstated argument. So you don't mind if your next door neighbour makes money by burying toxic waste in his back yard. Living in a city means you exchange some of your autonomy over your property for essential city services.
Obviously there are limits, like if you're actively harming people such as in the example you gave. But so long as you aren’t harming anyone I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to do what you like with the land you own (such as, for example, letting the plants grow freely).
Well, that's a different argument.
My personal experience tells me that "not harming anyone" is far more complex and difficult than people naively expect, and an argument that this isn't harming anyone needs to be supported. It's not the kind of thing that you can just count on your common sense for.
There's also differences of values. What you consider harm and what someone else considers harm are not the same thing. My values say that not only is biodiversity more important than looking good, but even that wild looks better than manicured. But I probably wasn't in the group that set the community values.
Someone might want to let their garden grow to promote bee health. A neighbor might have a child who is extremely allergic to bees. That neighbor would see an overgrown lawn as a threat to their child and reducing the overall safety of their neighborhood.