Why I love my neighbours

[ChinRey]

This is how the southernmost part of Greater Coniston looked a week or two ago:

The road used to continue into the next sim and end at a lovely fishermen's port but the owner gave up more than a year ago and abandoned his land. I wanted to buy the land myself and extend my own build but there was no way I could afford more tier than what I already pay.

A few months ago a landflipper bought all the abandoned land, split it up into smaller parcels and put them up for sale. I watched on the map as some of the parcels sold but didn't go near because I was afraid of what I would see. Today I finally mustered enough courage and this is what I saw:

That's just one little bit of it. Four of the parcels have been sold now and the landflipper has decided to decorate two more. Each of these six builds is completely different from the others with its own personality yet they fit together so well. Rather than fight each other, they compliment each other and what I and others already had in place, making everything look better and richer. I do actually know the owner of that lovely What Next cottage, she's one of my former tenants, but I haven't seen her for ages and the other new neighbours are total strangers - one of them is a newcomer even.

It may be sheer luck, but my corner of mainland has been almost immune to eyesores for longer than I've had the land. People come and go, often wthout ever meeting each other, yet everybody seem to just naturally respect each other. I hope it'll last. There are other parcels for sale here. Still, with all the talk about how bad mainland is and how horrible neighbours are in SL, this shows that it doesn't have to be that way.

But...

Right behind these houses there is a low hill and right behind that hill are some parcels where many years ago some Lindens had fun rezzing plywood prims before they got tired of it and left. It's out of sight, but only barely.

Edited December 11, 2019 by ChinRey

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, that truly is rare. I remember when that area had big palaces of land barons but that was 15 years ago. If it is Lindens that rezzed the boards, can't you file a ticket and ask them to remove them? They will do this.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

If it is Lindens that rezzed the boards, can't you file a ticket and ask them to remove them? They will do this.

Maybe but thanks to that hill (or ridge rather) it is out of sight although just barely and I'm not the Sansara police. Besides, Linden Village covers the entire spectrum of mainland builds from the messiest madlands to some of the best early prim works. You can ask the Lindens and ex-Lindens who own land there to clean up and maybe they will but exactly where is the border between acceptable and unacceptable?

I mentioned it because I think it illustrates one of the most important reasons why so much of mainland (and many private estates too come to think of it) is in such bad shape. I worked as a teacher for many years and I've seen so many times how important it is to lead by example. If authority figures don't abide by the written and unwritten rules, others won't either and once things start to slip, problems will only escalate. The Lindens are of course important authority figures in SL and unfortunately they are not always good examples to follow neither when it comes to land management nor content creation.

"Do as I say, not as I do" is possibly the worst argument humankind has ever managed to come up with because action always speaks louder than words.