You walk out to fetch the paper in a hillside neighborhood overlooking the city. You pause to appreciate the line of houses demurely separated from the street by ivy-covered fences. As your gaze travels up the hill, you stare. A pair of fins emerges just below the horizon, coming out of the shingles of a small Tudor. A sculpture of a life-size shark appears to have crashed into the roof, interrupting the skyline with a fishy posterior. You call the City Council. 

But the City Council is knocking at the Cape Cod one block over. A woman opens the door.

“We’ve received a complaint that you hang your laundry outside to dry and that you have”—he raises his eyebrows—“chickens.” The woman pushes back a toddler wearing grass-stained overalls as she steps onto the porch. 

“We’ve kept everything neat and asked the neighbors if they mind. They don’t. We’re just trying to live sustainably.”

“If you want to go Little House on the Prairie, move. We have zoning laws here” (Both stories are based on true events, see footnote 1). 

Two households facing property regulations. One neighborhood violated by unconventional décor and squawking birds. Is it tyrannical overreach into property rights? Or a reasonable effort to preserve an attractive community? 

In beginning a discussion of whether governments should enforce standards of beauty through means like aesthetic zoning, I’m attempting to reconcile a few different premises. First, that beauty is good and that attractive surroundings contribute to human flourishing. Second, a community’s structure reflects its priorities. Third, personal freedom is crucial to a just society. Fourth, while there are some principles and standards of aesthetic judgment, humans have differing taste.

Sir Roger Scruton wrote, “[Beauty speaks to us] … of things that we ought to want, because nature requires them” (2). A community’s design is a way of shaping cultural values, and should be intentional. Our external environment can shape our internal attitudes. Scruton argues that aesthetic zoning is as traditional as the Old Testament, in which God laid out specific artistic standards for building the Temple, which was “the first step towards undertaking the communal task of settling” (3).

In what a Marvel villain called “the architecture of belief,” churches were placed in the center of towns to make them more accessible and to indicate that God was the center of civic, as well as interior, life. Ultron used the phrase for poetic effect, but he made an important point–physical structures affect internal attitudes. Spaces can orient us towards what is good and simultaneously shape and express culture.

But should those values be shaped by zoning laws?

In America, where we share a preference for individual self-expression, government action seems like the only way to achieve intentional aesthetic design. And aesthetics is a vague area to give the government power in. 

The political philosopher Frederic Bastiat claimed that, 

“If you attempt to make the law … philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic — you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?” (4)

Government power is force and should be limited. Laws governing clear moral issues, like murder and theft, protect rights. Laws regulating grey areas give the government an ambiguous amount of power. When the government (or HOA) restricts artistic decisions for a “community interest” they are suppressing the artist’s expression (5).  This a central idea in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, about a man expelled from architectural school for rejecting traditional designs preferred by the community.

Giving the government control in this area places aesthetic judgment in the hands of politicians who can be bought off by herbicide companies or passing trends. It might even be argued that the government, or any large community, usually exhibits a preference for the worst of art instead of the best. 

Even if we could agree that a shark on the roof is objectively tasteless, what about chickens and dandelions? A property like that conflicts with standards shaped by lawncare commercials. We might face a trade-off: would you be willing to see a shark on the neighbor’s roof if it means that you can keep chickens in the yard?

Sometimes there is not a direct conflict between beauty and freedom. An article published by the Foundation for Economic Education found that cities with less restrictive zoning laws are often very beautiful. Respecting private property rights encourages a sense of ownership. And owners have an interest—personal or commercial—in maintaining attractive properties (6). But, in many instances, the conflict does exist and can be resolved only by individuals. 

The ideal is to have a society where people use their freedom to eliminate the need for government action. Dick and Liz Uihlein, the owners of the Uline company, recently purchased a home in Manitowish Waters, a Wisconsin resort town that my grandparents visit yearly. Mrs. U. began fixing up storefronts and offering to plant flowers around town. Vacationers like my grandparents appreciate how much lovelier the town now is—simply through private initiative (7).

If the question of property rights versus community aesthetics resonates with you, use your rights to create a beautiful space. If community development is an “architecture of belief,” then it’s probably best that the government is limited in shaping those beliefs. But we should use our freedom to create spaces that inspire those passing by to live with beauty and intention—not run in envy to the nearest Home Depot or call up the Homeowner’s Association.