A group of _permanent_ residents enacted ordinances in order to stem a decline in real property value due to loud parties, poor maintenance and slovenness by students. They are trying to enforce _their own_ ordinances as best they can. Please tell me that you would not be concerned if a large number of residences around you became rental property and subsequently became messier, more poorly kempt and had a negative effect on the value of your most precious posession - your house and land. This is not Big Brother, it's a community trying to protect its own property.

This seems to be a huge cultural difference between the US and UK. Over here, while we might be "concerned", there is no legal power that can be invoked against neighbours in this sort of situation unless the neighbours are causing genuine risk (whether structural or health-related) to adjoining properties. Loud parties can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by council noise enforcement, but poor maintenance is a matter solely between the neighbour and his mortgage company, and slovenliness is not viewed as cause for an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. If you move into a neighbourhood which then goes downhill, that's just bad luck; US-style "homeowners' associations" send a chill down my spine and I expect those of most people here. They've never really shaken off their image of Levittown-era institutionalised racial steering, and intolerance of students just seems like the same old same old. Sure, having a mixture of races on a street drove down the prices that white supremacists were willing to pay for houses there. Was excluding blacks a good answer to that problem? No.

Peter