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There are plenty of alternatives to wind turbines. There are very few or no alternatives to the others you mentioned, especially in rural areas. Even so, when

There are plenty of alternatives to wind turbines. There are very few or no alternatives to the others you mentioned, especially in rural areas. Even so, when a community has enough funding, they will often implement such things with additional aesthetic considerations- running wires underground, adding decorative touches or using more expensive materials for sidewalks, adding greenery to roadways such as planting flowers or trees, etc. As for gas stations and stores, every business has local codes it has to obey, which in some areas may include the visual appearance of the building, the square footage and so on. If a community chooses not to do these things, it is usually to save money or avoid discouraging new businesses from coming in (i.e. by requiring expensive brickwork facades). In any case, yes, aesthetics are always a consideration.

glenstein 2y ago
If, when people raise aesthetic concerns about windmills, all they are really saying is that it's subject to the same level of concern as our electric and telecom and highway and gas infrastructure, which have been built out like a nervous system into every city and town across the country, and therefore it will be as equally as easy to build out as all of those, then there's no such thing as an aesthetic problem with windmills. If there's an elevated standard that differentiates aesthetics of windmills from those other cases, then those other things are not subject to the same type of consideration after all.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  Like I started my point with, windmills get higher scrutiny because there are alternatives to them, unlike things like sidewalks and electrical lines.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    Are the same aesthetic standards applied to the alternatives though?
  - glenstein 2y ago
    I'm not sure I agree there truly are such things as "alternatives" to windmills depending on what you mean. Presumably you locate windmills in places where it's most advantageous to do so, where they are the best answer to a present need, not in places where they are worse than some other alternative, where they, as the lesser alternative, have to make up the difference with escalated emphasis on aesthetic concerns. It's one of the more idiosyncratic rationalizations for escalated aesthetic standards I have yet heard.

glenstein 2y ago

If, when people raise aesthetic concerns about windmills, all they are really saying is that it's subject to the same level of concern as our electric and telecom and highway and gas infrastructure, which have been built out like a nervous system into every city and town across the country, and therefore it will be as equally as easy to build out as all of those, then there's no such thing as an aesthetic problem with windmills. If there's an elevated standard that differentiates aesthetics of windmills from those other cases, then those other things are not subject to the same type of consideration after all.

zdragnar 2y ago
Like I started my point with, windmills get higher scrutiny because there are alternatives to them, unlike things like sidewalks and electrical lines.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  Are the same aesthetic standards applied to the alternatives though?
- glenstein 2y ago
  I'm not sure I agree there truly are such things as "alternatives" to windmills depending on what you mean. Presumably you locate windmills in places where it's most advantageous to do so, where they are the best answer to a present need, not in places where they are worse than some other alternative, where they, as the lesser alternative, have to make up the difference with escalated emphasis on aesthetic concerns. It's one of the more idiosyncratic rationalizations for escalated aesthetic standards I have yet heard.