For a while there my newspaper beat included covering Carver County, an traditionally rural county that now had a couple of towns of about 25,000, a town of about 12,000, one of about 9,000 and a few much smaller. There's still farmland in between, but it's shrinking.
When I was about 20 I worked in one of the towns. At the time it was about three blocks long, surrounded by open fields. Now its population has quintupled. Suburban developments and chain restaurants and stores sprawl out in every direction. The county is the fastest growing in the state (and the wealthiest).
Residents are constantly opposing new developments for ruining the views from their houses. "I moved here 10 years ago so I could have this beautiful view" people would say. I'd always think, "How do you suppose the people who moved here 20 years ago (or 30, or 40, or 50) feel about YOUR house?"
It got particularly intense over a parcel of land owned and occupied by Prince and his ex-wife. After they divorced he razed the house (he was living in his nearby recording studio, Paisley Park, also in Carver County, when he died). His heirs sold the property for a development of upscale houses. When the city council discussed it, city hall was overflowing. (The council approved it after the developer pledged to donate part of the property for a park.)
Anyway, when people complained about that kind of thing, government officials would sometimes say, "If you want to keep your view in Carver County, you have to buy it."
But in fact, you wouldn't have to. You could just live next to a park. The county has two big parks and an arboretum. A friend lives in a giant sprawling condo complex that's kind of ugly, but her unit looks out onto a bike trail that won't be demolished anytime soon.
So long story short: one of the things I like about my apartment is it looks out onto a city park. Nobody's going to suggest changing it -- if a city hall overflowed over Prince's place, a park would make it explode. There's also a wetlands back there, developing on which, I believe, is illegal.