14 ms·

A number of European countries have "freedom to roam". It would be nice if America had an equivalent, but given how lobbying works that seems impossible at this

• bergenty 4y ago
  I wouldn’t want that in the US. We have more than enough national public land where people are free to roam. The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard. We are a very individualistic people, I don’t want people in my little nation state.
  • teddyh 4y ago
    > The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard. FUD. Freedom to Roam laws only allow camping a fair distance away from inhabited buildings.
    • torstenvl 4y ago
      • teddyh 4y ago
        No, what’s “ugly behavior” is posting FUD. > The vast majority of people don't have inhabited buildings in their back yards. If a building is uninhabited, the yard attached to it is hardly “my backyard”, as ‘bergenty’ wrote.
        • torstenvl 4y ago
          • teddyh 4y ago
            Sorry, but characterizing Freedom to Roam as allowing people “camping in my backyard” is indeed FUD. Words like “my backyard” have a reasonable definition, and you can’t just redefine them at will (i.e. redefine “my backyard” to mean “my whole property”) to make the statement technically true.
            • torstenvl 4y ago
              The dictionary definition is "the area close to where one lives, regarded with proprietorial concern"
              • tarboreus 4y ago
                Er, no. A yard is a single open space. Your backyard is the single open space behind (i.e., not in front of) your house.
                • MacsHeadroom 4y ago
                  In america "backyard" often refers to an area extending beyond ones own neighbourhood. It's where the acronym "NIMBY" (Not In My Backyard) comes from. The OP could indeed be objecting to unknown people camping anywhere near their property, even off of it.
                  • cercatrova 4y ago
                    As an American, yes backyard can mean the general area where one stays, but in the specific comment above, I also took it to mean literally in someone's backyard.
    • timnetworks 4y ago
      • teddyh 4y ago
        Freedom to Roam laws only allow passing through, not littering. Do you foresee people who would litter illegally, but would not trespass illegally?
        • sokoloff 4y ago
          I can foresee that encouraging the roaming brings along some amount of littering among the inconsiderate.
          • teddyh 4y ago
            Even though this is not a significant problem in countries which has such laws?
          • belorn 4y ago
            I have seen a fairly common solution being deployed in those situations. People who tend to be that lazy that they litter will also be too lazy to walk large distances with their stuff. Thus the solution that land owners deploy is to increase the walking distance between potential parking location and the desired nature destination. Obviously this lower the accessibility for disabled people so its not a perfect solution, but if government want to make it accessible then they can also pay for solving the littering problem.
      • kjkjadksj 4y ago
        Well those types of campers are already in the US without freedom to roam so its not like the situation would change at all.
    • exit 4y ago
      how is "a fair distance" specified?
      • nkrisc 4y ago
        They may not be citing specific law, but instead generally describing the spirit of a broad set of such laws.
        • dixie_land 4y ago
          then essentially it's unenforceable, so no I don't want that in the states. fair to me means "not one inch across my property line"
          • exit 4y ago
            i think "not one inch across my property line" makes sense, but there is still a problem to resolve regarding access to public land. in particular the article describes a problem with public land being inaccessible except through "corner crossing".
            • behringer 4y ago
              The solution is simple. Land owners should just be required to grant access to public land they border. If you don't like that, don't buy property that borders public land.
              • randallsquared 4y ago
                Virtually every property borders public land of some kind (a public road right of way, typically). It might be interesting to minimally specify what it means to allow access in a way that doesn't allow virtually any path across one's land. You can't just require allowance from any other border directly to the nearest border of public land, for this reason (could be through the owner's house or garden). One way might be to require the specification of public traversal areas as part of the title. Or 100m around the edges of every property is traversable.
    • bergenty 4y ago
      If it’s 70m that’s still very close to my house. Americans have a way of pushing the boundaries of every law, we’re a litigious country we follow the letter of the law not the spirit. This will probably result in a chain of homeless people that stay in your backyard for three days and then move over to the next backyard.
      • teddyh 4y ago
        > If it’s 70m that’s still very close “150 metres in Norway and in all countries far enough that you do not inconvenience anyone and particularly not those in the nearest house.” — https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Right_to_access_in_the_Nordic_countries#Camp_and_picnick https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Right_to_access_in_the_Nordic... > This will probably result in a chain of homeless people Countries with Freedom to Roam laws have homeless people, too. What you describe has not happened. > stay in your backyard for three days Again, FUD about “your backyard”. Do you have a 250,000 sq. ft (2.24 hectares, 5.5 acres) back yard? Also, Freedom to Roam laws usually restrict camping to at most two nights, sometimes one night only.
        • bergenty 4y ago
          Yes, I have a 24 acre backyard
          • teddyh 4y ago
            Your usage of the word “backyard” differs from everybody else’s.
            • bergenty 4y ago
              It definitely doesn’t, not according to the dictionary anyway. As an aside, I think you may be underestimating how large American homes and properties can be, it’s not Europe scale. 5 acres really isn’t all that large.
              • 4y ago
  • WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
    > The last thing I want is some random camping in my backyard. Story: A regional gov agency bought a large tract of land behind my home for conservation. A fireline was cut all around the edge of the tract and lined with a 4' wire fence that ran adjacent to our properties. Homeowners were unitedly happy the land wouldn't be developed but some were upset it was now available for public daytime use. Two disgruntled neighbors in particular stand out. One was a new mom who was alone all day and was unsettled with folks hiking past her backyard. The other was a generally cantankerous old guy who felt his right of privacy ought to extend far into land that wasn't his. Whenever my kids and I hiked the fireline, we made a point of venturing away from the alone-mom's property but didn't extend the same courtesy to the old guy. Though we had a right to walk any part of the tract we wanted, we found respecting alone-mom's concerns was worth the effort. My moral here is that demanding every last nanometer of rights - while rejecting all notions of consideration - is usually too absolutist to be productive. When conflicting desires are in play, I feel consideration+efficiency leads to more workable agreements.
    • runsWphotons 4y ago
      why were her concerns more important than his? old man was probably alone all day as well and unsettled
      • factsarelolz 4y ago
        • torstenvl 4y ago
          I have seen a lot of people with PTSD and I'm thankful for your consciousness of it and care about veterans. I wonder if there might be a way of going about discussing it that would be more effective in winning people over, though.
      • WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
        > why were her concerns more important than his? old man was probably alone all day as well and unsettled Young mom is young and still sorting out how to tell FUD from actual risk. Also, her peer group is at actual risk from men. I can give her room to sort out what's what; meanwhile, the risk from men diminishes with age. The old man was married and his adult kids where there a lot. I was on the HOA board and talked to him a number of times. He wasn't struggling with any concern for his safety; he resented that his visible area could be (<5x/yr as it was remote) briefly intruded by someone walking by on the other side of the fence.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • mrmanner 4y ago
    Sweden, one of the usual examples when freedom to roam is discussed, has laws agains home invasion including yards, gardens, etc. since at least 800 years. This has nothing to do with property rights, any home regardless of ownership structure is protected. So camping in someone's backyard could most definitely be illegal even if you were to introduce freedom to roam :)
• cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  In practice it doesn't matter at all, just BLM (Bureau of Land Management) alone owns 387,500 sq mi of public land. For comparison, Scotland, is 30,090 sq mi in size . This is not counting local, state and national parks and forests. Why fix a problem that doesn't exist? Some of the largest parks are comparable in size to European countries. https://mapfight.xyz/map/yellowstone/ https://mapfight.xyz/map/yellowstone/ https://mapfight.xyz/map/death.valley/ https://mapfight.xyz/map/death.valley/
  • saagarjha 4y ago
    Having to drive to a place to hike rather than just being able to go across the areas around you is annoying.
    • dumpsterlid 4y ago
      Exactly, the difference between unconnected wild areas (public access wise) and connected wild areas is massive. The landscape in large parts of the US is totally fenced in and splintered in a way that even if there is lots of public access it isn't effectively connected in a way that people can actually utilize it.
    • chrismeller 4y ago
      It’s the US, you’re going to have to drive to it anyway because it’s 500 miles away.
    • cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      There are tons of hiking places that are walkable from most US city centers. Most US cities have large parks. Unless European cities are smack in the middle of nature, I think they also have same issue.
  • aaomidi 4y ago
    Because just giving out land numbers is pretty useless? How much of that land is where people actually are? Most of that land you need to drive to.
• phpisthebest 4y ago
  As a general rule I dislike the form of government that is European, and prefer the American Individualist system, so I dont think it would be nice if America adopts more European laws, we have adopted too many of them already IMO. We revolted for a reason, many Americans seem to have forgotten those reasons in the centuries since, Europe has always been more authoritarian than the US, and they largely replaced monarch systems with more collectivist systems instead of adoption of more Individualist systems like the US did. I prefer the Individualist system, the smallest minority is the individual, and individual rights are supreme over collective or group rights.
  • teraflop 4y ago
    It seems really odd to view a law granting individuals the right to use land for personal recreation as "authoritarian" and not "individualist".
    • burgerzzz 4y ago
      It favors the collective rather than the individuals right to personal property, it’s not an odd view.
    • phpisthebest 4y ago
      Why? The "right to roam" is a collective right granting the public a "right" over that of the individual property owners right to control access and use to their property. To conflate the "right to roam" as a "individual right" completely miss understands what an individual right is
      • 9dev 4y ago
        This is possibly the core difference between the US and Europe for me; American individualism isn’t about individuals, but property, and it always has been. By granting someone a degree of land ownership so extreme they can inhibit other people from experiencing nature across it, you’re merely fetishising property, and doing every single individual a net disservice in the process.
• Siddarth1977 4y ago
  This is a good "tell me you only know life in the city, without telling me you've only lived in the city". To anyone living in a rural area or working in agriculture, conservation, timber/lumber, mining, ranching, hunting, etc, the idea of a finding a random stranger walking across their property would be as alarming as finding that stranger in their living room. The tourists may unintentionally cause damage, disrupt operations or create an unsafe condition even if they were well-meaning. And of course, many people will not be the ideal "leave no trace" expert and many will cause problems- they'll leave litter, they'll gather sticks for firewood, they'll clear areas for campsites, they'll walk on wet grass, they'll leave human waste, they'll leave fire rings with charred remains, they'll pick flowers or fruit, they'll take fossils, they'll carve their names in trees and paint on rocks, etc. Ethically, if we're going to start taking away people's property rights, I'd rather we force vacant urban housing to be made available to rent before we start forcing farmers to clean up rogue campsites on their fallow fields.
  • dumpsterlid 4y ago
    You are speaking with a lot of assumed authority about what "rural people" as a large category think
• dathinab 4y ago
  > It would be nice if America had an equivalent A problem is that (at least some parts of) America has pretty absurd "stand your ground" laws (absurd from a EU POV). Even in the EU countries which don't have freedom to roam laws it is most times safe and often rather inconsequential to trespass, as long as (very oversimplified) you don't climb any fences or similar and keep on the path. (I.e. you have only "accidentally" overlooked the sign pointing out it's a private path you are not allowed to take.) Note that I strongly recommend reading/translating path signs, they might matter a lot. Similar keep on the path, not just for nature but because there might be unexpected natural and less natural dangers (like WW2 left overs, accidentally entering military training areas, flash flood risks, dangerous nature, etc.).
  • sb057 4y ago
    >A problem is that (at least some parts of) America has pretty absurd "stand your ground" laws (absurd from a EU POV). You're confusing "stand your ground" (wherein one can defend against an attacker regardless of where they are) and "castle doctrine" (wherein one can defend against an attacker if residing on one's property). It's the latter that's applicable in this case, but only if the person trespassing is also attacking the property owner. Additionally, there is a very strong historical precedent for both in western (ie European) law, and especially for the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semayne%27s_case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semayne%27s_case
    • dathinab 4y ago
      Sure I mixed up the terms but the difference is how the law is interpreted today. in many EU countries the ways you can defend against an attacker are in practice much more limited and highly contextual. If you kill someone who is hiking across your property you are most likely going to prison for killing, even "just" using a taser or holding them down until police arives can easily count as unproportional amounts of force and get you sentenced for hurting the trespasser. On the other hand you are much more likely to get away with it in some US states. Furthermore in some EU countries trespassing laws are also more limited and can even have unexpected "gaps". Like there had been a case in which it was found that activists which trespassed onto a farm to document animal abuse where not found guilty of trespassing as they had a reasonable reason to enter the property. And sure it's something else if you idk. brake into someones home instead of "just" trespassingly pass through a property (especially if the property is not fenced off, I think in some countries if a property is not fenced of and there is a path especially if its without a sign and it's not just obviously a garden of a house it doesn't even count as trespassing at all). Lastly people having a gun at hand is also much more rare in many EU countries.