The Great Wall of Fairfax, Virginia

Guess the ethnic origin of the homeowner who built a giant sun-blocking addition and the origin of the NIMBY neighbor who complained.

When I heard about this kerfuffle in Fairfax, Virginia, a nice suburb of Washington DC, I immediately figured the homeowner building a hulking addition right up to the property line and blocking sunlight was an immigrant and the NIMBY neighbor complaining was an American.

Traditionally, Americans didn’t push their property rights to extremes for their houses; thus, our wasteful front lawns and the like. “What would Thomas Jefferson do” seemed to be the American motto. (Seriously, Jefferson’s influence on American architecture and, especially, landscape architecture should not be underestimated.)

Immigrants exploiting the zoning code and natives kvetching was the way it was also in the San Fernando Valley in the early 2000s, with immigrants from the Caucasus building giant shoebox-shaped houses from lot line to lot line to hold their next 17 cousins to arrive. The guy behind my dad built a 4,000 square foot one-story dormitory in his Valley Village backyard, with no windows for his least-favorite in-laws.

An interesting question is whether Americans get along worse with their non-nuclear family relatives when they try to live with them, or do Eurasians just not mind a lot of yelling around the house?

So …

Paywall here.