Back in Cincin­nati and else­where across the coun­try, peo­ple build fancy homes adja­cent to major Inter­state high­ways where the land is cheap. Within a cou­ple of years, the same idea always occurs to them. They com­plain to the local gov­ern­ment: how dare you allow this noisy high­way next to my house? It’s reduc­ing my prop­erty value and dimin­ish­ing my qual­ity of life! You must build a sound wall with mil­lions of dol­lars of tax­payer money!

Sooner or later, the gov­ern­ment builds their damn wall. I have a spe­cial place in my heart for these peo­ple. I have long believed that in Boston, in the city, this kind of child­like atti­tude could not thrive. But was I ever wrong! The lat­est cul­prit: my new neigh­bors. From today’s Boston Globe:

The Fen­way is rapidly chang­ing from the home of rowdy stu­dents and noisy sports bars to a fash­ion­able neigh­bor­hood that just saw its first $1 mil­lion town­house price tag. Along with the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion has come a new com­plaint: helicopters.

Annoyed res­i­dents say the per­cus­sive roar of air­borne machin­ery has been inter­rupt­ing their al fresco din­ners, drown­ing out their phone calls, and dis­turb­ing oth­er­wise quiet after­noons at home, and they have been beg­ging City Hall to do some­thing about it.

[...]

”Since the All-Star Game [in 1999], you’ve had Bruce Spring­steen, Jimmy Buf­fett; we’re going to have the Rolling Stones—not to men­tion the Red Sox win­ning the World Series, not to men­tion spec­u­la­tion about new own­er­ship and do they or don’t they move,” Ross said. ”All of that has led to so much air traf­fic over Fen­way Park, and res­i­dents have started to say: ‘Are there any con­trols, and what can be done to alle­vi­ate the noise?’ “

Atten­tion stu­pid rich peo­ple: you just bought a lux­ury condo between a pop­u­lar ball­park, eight major hos­pi­tals, and a thriv­ing city. Grow a pair.